Slipshod slumped onto the bed, utterly exhausted; both physically and especially emotionally. Tensions on the ship were still running high―there wasn’t much that could be done to fully eliminate that, given the circumstances―but he felt like he’d managed to make at least some progress on that front. Enough for him to finally get in a half-decent meal or two over the last week. He was far from sated, but he wasn’t in danger of collapsing from hunger either. Which was about as much as he could hope for right now.

A pair of hooves placed themselves onto his shoulders and pressed down. The earth pony groaned with a mixture of pain and pleasure as he felt the knotted muscles beneath his hide get kneaded out of existence. He’d been waiting all week for this moment, and voiced as much aloud.

The stallion kneeling over him chuckled, “I’ll bet. I don’t think I’ve ever felt you this tense,” Blood Chit commented as he began to slowly, and diligently, work his way down the earth pony’s backside.

Slipshod stiffened briefly as one of his vertebrae gave an audible pop, before immediately melting back onto the mattress, “OoOoOhh...it’s been a long week,” he said, “for everypony.”

“Tell me about it,” the pegasus frowned, “I’ve got a list of massage requests as long as my wingspan. Fortunately for them, it’s not like I’ve got anything better to do…”

The earth pony heard the sour note in the head of recovery’s tone. His sentiment was one that Slipshod had been becoming all too familiar with of the last eight days.

Docking with the Disciple WarShip―which had identified itself as the Rockhoof―had gone about as well as could be expected. Text instructions had been relayed to the Galloway about where to dock the DropShip. Then, the moment the clamps were secured, both ships jumped out of the system without warning. Doppler hadn’t managed to get a fix on what system that they had jumped to, exactly; but she had at least been able to determine that it was in the general direction of ‘away’ from the Harmony Sphere.

The same had been the case for the jump that had been made yesterday.

Including their jump to PEA-02-UX, they were now the better part of a hundred lightyears outside of the Harmony Sphere. Deep in the Periphery. Certainly well outside of the part of the galaxy that anypony on the ship knew anything about. Well, at least that anypony knew anything reliable about.

Strictly speaking, even the changelings only had fuzzy data on the regions of space surrounding the Sphere. After all, they could only get their agents properly inserted if the creature whose identity was to be assumed traveled to Equus, along with an extensive record of their personal and professional histories. The middling ‘star nations’ of the Periphery, unsurprisingly, sent in few applicants. Which was to say: zero.

Reconnaissance was periodically conducted, but mostly just for the purposes of tracking whether or not any of the minor powers out in this part of the galaxy might present a genuine threat Chrysalis’ designs on the Harmony Sphere. Thus far, the answer to that question had proved to be a resounding: not in the least. By the best estimates of the changelings, even if the whole of the Periphery were to band together into a singular coalition and invade, they could be thoroughly trounced by any one of the larger mercenary outfits in service to the major powers.

With nothing to draw the interests of the significant political, economic, or military power of the Sphere, little effort was made to reach out and interact with the Periphery, leaving it as mostly an ‘unknown’ quantity. While this didn’t give most of the local denizens the feeling that that region of space was dangerous, per se, it was still a source of wariness. The public’s ignorance regarding the Periphery had certainly proven to be fertile ground where theatrical thrillers were concerned. Whenever a vid’s narrative called for some previously unheard of threat to manifest, having it originate from beyond the borders of the Sphere was a staple of the industry.

The prospect of the same ‘unknown’ quality that served screenwriters so well was currently responsible for a significant portion of the crew’s overall apprehension. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much that Slipshod could do about that. If there was a silver lining to be had, it was that the crew was significantly less concerned about the Disciple ship itself as a result.

That, the earth pony concluded, was a phenomenal accomplishment in and of itself.

Of course, there had been something very apropos to outright panic when the Rockhoof had become visible through the DropShip’s exterior viewports. After all, WarShips weren’t a ‘thing’ in the Harmony Sphere anymore, and all that remained were the―over exaggerated―stories about their awesome destructive power. Yes, they were genuinely very potent ships in battle, but it boggled Slipshod’s mind how many ponies on the Galloway believed that ancient battleships like the one currently ferrying them were capable of outright destroying a whole planet!

Questions not unlike Aileron’s proceeded to flurry about the crew: where had a middling little terrorist cult like the Disciples managed to acquire a WarShip?!

It had helped a little―very little―that the ostensible reason why the Steel Coursers were docked with the WarShip was to find out the answer to that very question. At the very least, it then made sense why nopony had a real answer. Theories abounded, of course.

The earth pony’s current personal favorite was that the Rockhoof was, in fact, not a WarShip, but was instead merely a new design of heavily armed Jump Ship.

The golden stallion was not entirely certain what the purpose of that distinction was supposed to be―it seemed entirely semantic to him―but it had gained popularity among much of the crew, and had somehow seemed to help put them at ease.

Fucking ponies…

Armed with that―dubious―assurance, the members of the Steel Coursers had managed to soothe the worst of their trepidation, and were now focused on the next steps of the purported ‘operation’; which was to ingratiate themselves to the Disciples by remaining cordial and offering assistance when asked.

This facet of the ‘mission’ had thus far been phenomenally easy, as the Disciples barely communicated with the crew of the Galloway outside of a request for a daily status report. Which meant that it was next to impossible for the Steel Coursers to somehow inadvertently offend their hosts. The latter directive was just as easily accomplished, as the Disciples hadn’t asked for help with anything.

So, with nothing ‘mission essential’ to really focus on, the crew had fallen back into some of their old routines. This wasn’t the first time the ship had been en route to a destination where the journey was going to take a much longer time than usual. Every once in a while, Squelch would come across a tidbit of information that she deduced would lead to a lucrative contract for the company, but would also require the Galloway to spend over a month in transit to get to the site of the contract.

During such times, the crew turned inward and focused on ‘housekeeping tasks’. Overhauls were conducted on the ship’s drives. In depth inspections which required many of the more essential flight systems to be taken offline were made. BattleSteeds were effectively rebuilt so that any minor deficiencies which had been previously overlooked in the interests of getting the ‘Steed ‘combat ready’ as quickly as possible could be addressed before they became major deficiencies. Just about every cabin and corridor of the ship was scrubbed down to within an inch of its life…

You know: ‘busy work’.

None of which involved Slipshod―except for the cabin cleaning bit.

However, the stallion had been far from bored these last eight days. After all, he had an investigation to conduct. Which was why he’d spent last week getting to know all three of his primary suspects as intimately as he could. One of which he’d inadvertently gotten to know a little more ‘intimately’ than even he’d intended. On the other hoof, it had been a while, and who knew when they’d next be in port anyway…

Unfortunately―or fortunately, depending on how one looked at it―Slipshod’s investigations had not turned up what he’d been hoping to find. Or―more accurately, he supposed―what he’d been dreading he’d find.

The good news was that neither Arc Light, Dustoff, or Wing Nut were changelings. All of them had allowed Slipshod to draw from them, and all of them had turned out to have plausible explanations for their otherwise ‘unusual’ behavior at the memorial service.

It had been revealed that Arc Light had simply had a crush on Rigger Brush and had decided that an ideal time to make ‘first contact’ was while she was mourning the loss of a dear friend. The way the unicorn had described his thought process to Slipshod had been: “I figured she’d need a shoulder to cry on, and I could be it. Besides, when mares get mopy and emotional like that, things happen, you know?” Followed by a wink.

Definitely not a changeling. An empath would have known better. Especially where Rigger was concerned. He’d actually talked to the thestral about it during his next modeling session. They’d shared a good laugh.

By some strange coincidence, the morning after their conversation, a rather unflattering―though impressively drawn―picture of Arc Light had manifested in engineering at about the time his shift came on duty. It very quickly made its way around most of the ship, to the great delight of many of the unicorn’s peers who seemed to find it quite amusing. Arc Light, it seemed, had been less than pleased.

The artist remains unknown.

Dustoff, it turned out, had a wider and more varied circle of friends that he’d have assumed. She’d been a little wary, at first, of the stallion’s sudden recent interest in her affairs, but had opened up soon enough. That was how Slipshod had first become aware of a phenomenon known as ‘roleplaying’―which he had previously only known as a term applied to other activities. Dustoff and several other ponies from vastly divergent segments of the crew met up on a semi-regular basis to partake in some sort of fantasy adventure game.

It was a subject which the pegasus mare was very enthusiastic about, and had been more than happy to regale the stallion with at length. While the initial information dump had made the prospect seem daunting at first, Slipshod had agreed to participate in one of their sessions ‘to see how he’d like it’.

Perhaps it was a changeling thing, but there was something very appealing to him about assuming a faux identity for the sake of entertainment. The others at the session―which had indeed included ponies from among the ship’s ‘Steed mechanics and gunnery crews―had commended Slipshod on how adeptly he had taken on the role as the group’s freshly-minted bard. He’d left that evening with the promise of returning to participate regularly.

Also not a changeling.

Which had left only Wing Nut as his sole remaining suspect.

However, she―it turned out―had been ‘looking for a shoulder to cry on’. She and Lifeline had apparently been something of an ‘item’. There had even been a conversation or two about making their relationship ‘more official’. She’d attended the memorial service intending to find some measure of closure, but had quickly been overwhelmed and wasn’t able to process much during the event. The earth pony mare had then snuck off to go and cry in Lifeline’s old bunk.

The mechanic had been particularly susceptible to offers of condolences in the wake of the loss, it turned out. Slipshod wasn’t often one for pity sex. The emotions entwined with it were bitter and unsatisfying. But with the uncertain prospect of how often he’d be presented with any meals at all at the time, he’d taken the opportunity that had presented itself. Valkyrie likely would not have approved if she’d been around to find out he was engaging in dalliances with the crew―even less so when that crewmember was in a ‘vulnerable state’.

But she wasn’t there, and he was hungry.

The mare had hardly said a word to him since that night, and had certainly not sought out further sexual encounters. Likely for the best. In any case, she too was clearly not a changeling agent.

And, with that, his list of suspects had evaporated. Even he didn’t have the time to devote to vetting every single pony on the ship. There were dozens of members of the crew that he didn’t even know by name, and it’d take days with each of them before he’d be able to try and draw from them in order to determine whether they were a changeling or not. He didn’t know how much time they had left before they arrived at wherever the Disciples were taking them, but he doubted it was nearly that much.

Besides, any changeling on the ship needed a wide social network. Otherwise they risked drawing from any single pony too often, which would produce a noticeable change in the victim. Slipshod knew all of the ship’s other social butterflies who went out actively carousing with the crew. Anypony he didn’t know by name by this point was simply far too introverted to be a changeling.

There wasn’t a spy on the ship.

Which, while that technically fell into the realm of ‘good news’, it arguably made him more uneasy. If there wasn’t an agent feeding information to ComSpark about Twilight, then how had they figured out so much? The earth pony knew that he’d proposed the notion of a member of the crew making an off-hoof remark about a ‘new member of their company who was a purple mare with wings and a horn’ at a public venue in earshot of a changeling. And, yes, that was possible.

But the chances of it were...well, slim. Bordering on nonexistent really. Never mind that setting up the kind of elaborate trap that was necessary to have lured the Galloway to that out of the way system would have required more intelligence about the Steel Coursers and their commander than an off-hoof remark in a pub, or even an official dossier, could provide. It would have required knowing that the only reason that Squelch had taken such a mission in the first place was because the staging system was also the location of a defunct Celestia League outpost.

In fact, thinking back on it, and all of the possible systems that the Aris Highlanders could have used for a staging system, Slipshod had to wonder at whether it was actually a coincidence that it had been one which the Steel Coursers knew to host a CLDF facility. Only a select few ponies on the Galloway knew what systems they were interested in though. That information was certainly not anything that had been made broadly available to the crew. Yet, at the same time, Slipshod was extremely confident that it couldn’t be any of the company’s command staff.

It certainly couldn’t be Squelch. Never mind that he’d been married to her and very nearly husked her during their relationship, the unicorn mare was hardly in a position where she needed to use subterfuge to hoof over Twilight. She could have just...done it. Val wouldn't have gotten herself killed in that ambush if she’d been the plant. Heck, she’d warned them about it. His night of passion with the twin kirin mechanics squarely ruled them out as the agents. While Slipshod had never gotten personally close enough to Doc Dee to try and draw from the unicorn stallion, he knew that the physician rarely ever left the med bay. He certainly wasn’t being social enough to sustain a changeling’s needs, in the earth pony’s opinion.

Yet, that sort of information couldn’t have merely been gleaned from overheard drunken ramblings. It was far more likely that a mole was onboard the Galloway. If not a member of its core staff, then one who had access to the ship’s encrypted files.

And he had no idea who they could be.

Which was the source of much of the tension that Blood Chit was very graciously working out of his body at the moment. The scarlet pegasus shifted to the side and propped one of Slipshod’s hind legs over his shoulder as he started working his hooves over the earth pony’s hanches, prompting another brief grunt of pain, followed by a contented sigh.

“Seriously, this is bordering on unhealthy,” the winged stallion commented as he located a particularly rigid span of muscle, “I don’t know if you need to get laid or what, but you need to find a way to relax.”

“Is that an offer?” the earth pony murmured into the pillow as his leg was manipulated.

The recovery pony snorted, “I don’t think my coltfriend would like that very much.”

Slipshod suppressed a grimace as he felt the feelings of worry begin to trickle down from the pegasus. His coltfriend was back home in the Sphere. Blood Chit, nor any of the crew, knew how long it would be before they saw their loved ones again. The earth pony decided to try and steer the conversation away from that particular topic, “probably not.

“Bet it’s just because it’s been a few weeks since our last round of euchre. Have you found a new fourth yet?” Lifeline had been a regular feature in their games.

The stallion sighed as he continued to massage the leg. Tinges of guilt now, “I honestly haven’t been looking,” he admitted, “replacing her feels...I dunno. Shallow? It’s stupid. It’s not like there’s published etiquette on the appropriate amount of time one should wait before replacing a pony in their euchre group.

“But, still…” he let out a rough sigh.

“No, I get it,” Slipshod nodded, “patching over all of the bits of your life that they were a part of can feel like you’re ‘erasing’ them. Obviously, you’re supposed to ‘move on’, but you don’t want to actually forget that they were there in the first place,” he could feel Blood Chit’s appreciation at his apparent understanding of the pegasus’ dilemma.

“How about this,” the ‘Steed pilot suggested, “we put up an extra chair at the table ‘for Lifeline’ for the next few sessions. Until we feel like we’re finally comfortable enough to play without it. That sound like it’ll help?”

“...yeah, actually,” the scarlet pegasus said, sounding a little more chipper, “it’s a little cramped in the locker room with four chairs as it is, but maybe putting her picture on the table, or an extra shot glass. Something like that.”

“Something that ‘includes’ her in the game,” Slipshod agreed, now able to relax more completely that his masseuse wasn’t feeding him second-hoof tension.

“Yeah. Sure, I’ll put the word out. See if anypony else plays, or maybe wants to learn,” he moved on to the earth pony’s other leg, “so, how are you doing?”

The golden stallion canted his head around, looking at the pegasus with a raised eyebrow, “with…?”

“Val,” Blood Chit prompted, “we haven’t had much of a chance to talk. I know you two were close. Just checking in.”

Slipshod sighed and turned back around to rest his chin on the pillow, “I’m alright. ‘Steed pilots die. That’s the name of the game. It was just as likely to be me as her,” he said, doing his best to feed the other stallion what he was pretty sure he expected to hear, “don’t get me wrong: I’m sad she’s gone,” he affected a wry chuckle, “and not just because she still owed me twenty C-bits from the last Solaris Tournament,” he turned back briefly to wink at the recovery pony, smiling wanly, “but, at the same time...we both kind of knew it’d probably happen to one of us someday.”

“Yeah, I get that,” the pegasus nodded in understanding, “I tried to tell myself the same thing about Lifeline. We’re not in the sauce nearly as often as you ‘Steed jockeys, obviously. Still, we trained for hot pickups like that one because we knew they could happen,” a little bud of pride welled up in the stallion, “and I’m damn proud of my team for how they performed. They hit every beat and came within milliseconds of their best simulation time.”

“Exactly,” the earth pony agreed, “we train to do our jobs, and we go out and do them. But, bullets don’t care about flawless execution,” he soberly reminded the feathered pony, “Val performed admirably. She was on top of her game,” these were all vapid lies, of course. She’d disobeyed his orders, moved out of formation, and needlessly risked her life to accomplish a mission that had long since ceased to matter in the face of the ComSpark ambush. She’d died trying to live up to some sort of noble drivel about ‘placing the mission first’.

Drivel that she’d, admittedly, picked up from him because he’d been trying to affect a change in her mood after a mission. He’d been talking out of his ass at the time, of course. Lying to her. Manipulating her emotional state. It’d worked in the moment. He hadn’t expected words from a feigned ‘pep talk’ a couple months ago to have continued to affect her still. Apparently, she’d really taken his ‘advice’ to heart; and paid the price for it.

The truth of the nature of Valkyrie’s death wasn’t what Blood Chit needed to hear now though. He needed affirmation about what he was feeling, and hearing somepony else echo his own thoughts would help. So Slipshod was going to massage the truth of the events during their last mission to accomplish that, “she managed to help pull off what should have been an impossible shot, given the distances involved. She was exactly where she needed to be, when she needed to be there...

“...and then she was standing in exactly the wrong place for a second too long,” he shrugged, “with the ranges involved, that PPC blast that popped her cockpit couldn’t have been deliberate. Nopony’s that good. It was just some Commie pilot hoping they’d get lucky,” Slipshod let out an appropriately anemic sigh, “and they did. And Val didn’t. Simple as that.

“It was the same with Lifeline,” he added, glancing again at the pegasus, “whoever fired the shot that splatted her wasn’t aiming to hit her. They just missed Purple Rose. That was all it was.

“And that’s...how I deal with it: it wasn’t anypony’s fault. I couldn’t have done anything to prevent it. So instead I focus on moving on with my life,” he concluded. Pointedly ignoring the reality that Val had only done what she did because of how he’d informed her ‘real’ mercenaries acted during a mission.

It wasn’t his fault that she’d believed his lies.

“...I can see that, I guess,” the other pony said with a sigh, finishing up the earth pony’s hind leg and laying it on the bed. A moment later, the pegasus lowered himself down beside Slipshod, propping his head up on his hoof as he looked at the ‘Steed pilot, “you don’t have anypony back home, do you?”

Slipshod shook his head, “Archon wiped out my whole family while I was on Equus. Didn’t even bother going back home. When I made port on Simeron I signed on with the Steel Coursers the next day. Everypony I know in the galaxy is on this ship.”

The pegasus nodded and a wry smile wound its way across his lips, “weirdly enough, I think you’re kind of lucky,” he chuckled when the earth pony understandably raised a skeptical eyebrow, “not because of the familicide; that’s horrible, obviously. Heh, no, I’m talking about everypony you care about being on the ship. It means that, no matter where you go, you’ll never be far from the ponies who matter most to you. Even out here in the backend of wherever the fuck we are,” he gestrued broadly about the room with a wing.

“I’m envious of that.”

“Yeah, well, don’t take this the wrong way: but I hope you don’t end up being like me,” he winked at Blood Chit, “your coltfriend’s too cute to die.”

The pegasus let out a bubbly little laugh this time as he rolled over onto his belly, “I know, right?! He’s adorable; but he’d be the last one to agree with you if you told him that. I don’t know how he can look in the mirror and not see it?!”

“It’s the freckles,” Slipshod nodded sagely, basking in the loving feelings emanating off of the stallion as a result of his thoughts about the pony he cared most about in the galaxy. This could turn out to be one of the better meals he’d had in a while.

“AGH! Those freckles!” Blood Chit veritably screeched with joy, wrapping himself up in his forelegs and wings and rolling around on his half of the bed, “I just want to stare at them all day! The way they move when he eats; I can’t take it!

“I just want to tackle him out of his chair and chew on ‘em,” he flashed a devilish grin at the earth pony. His love was now tinged with more carnal feelings. Still nourishing though, if a little tangier, “when we finally get back home, I’m going to kiss each one individually,” those sweet feelings soured now, prompting a disappointed grimace from Slipshod that he quickly covered up.

“Which, I guess could be a while,” he mused aloud, “we’re not even going to be able to write home for who knows how long.”

“We’ll reach a settled system eventually,” Slipshod pointed out to the pegasus, “that system’ll have corporations, and one of them is bound to own a Jump Ship. I know that when we find one, Squelch’ll hire it out to travel back to the Sphere and transmit some letters back home to the net,” that was something that would almost certainly not be possible, the earth pony knew; but having the crew at least think that letters were getting home would help keep morale up.

He made a note to ask Squelch about feigning that, in the interests of maintaining the crew’s spirits. The happier they were, the better they’d perform―and the better he’d eat. Meals like this one were simply far more sparse than he’d grown accustomed to over the last couple years.

He idly debated if he should try to rope Wing Nut into a more permanent arrangement. While he’d discovered that using a monogamous sexual relationship as his sole source of sustenance was unsustainable in the long term, he’d managed to get a good six months out of Squelch before signs of deterioration had started to become troublesome. He could likely get a lot longer out of the earth pony mechanic, since she wouldn’t be in a position to make life or death decisions involving the crew when the cognitive decline started to manifest.

Maybe he could even get a year out of her before she was past the point of no return and he needed to move on to another crewmember?

Considerations for later, the stallion decided. Right this moment, he had a perfectly delectable serving of loving feelings right here beside him―

The bed quivered for the briefest moment. Both stallions blinked and sat up, looking first at each other, and then around the room.

It was Blood Chit who spoke up first, “did...that feel a lot like―?”

“―damper lag from an acceleration burn? Yeah,” Slipshod finished, noting that the knowledge that his initial assumption was being corroborated by another didn’t seem to be doing much to abate his confusion. The Galloway was still docked with the Disciple WarShip, which was―or until recently had been―holding position near this system’s primary star as it recharged its jump drive. They’d already been there for the better part of a day and a half.

There was no reason for them to be moving anywhere. And yet―

A sour tone blared sharply from where his barding lay crumpled on the floor.

The earth pony rolled off the bed and scrambled for his pad, which had no doubt just received a message containing information that would answer the questions budding in his head. A nearly identical sound from behind him on the bed suggested that the pegasus had received an alert of some sort as well. That actually prompted only more questions, as the two of them were parts of very divergent chains of command.

Slipshod was the mercenary company’s Lance Commander; one step below Squelch herself in the pecking order. His inclusion in any major command decisions, and updates on any important information affecting the outfit were part and parcel of his position. Meanwhile, Blood Chit technically fell under Mig’s supervision, as his recovery team was classified under the broad umbrella of ‘BattleSteed Operations’ over which the kirin held sway. The pegasus wouldn’t be getting the same news that Slipshod was. His marching order would be getting distilled through the kirin mechanic.

Blood Chit’s pad was a lot closer at hoof to the pegasus, and so he finished reading his briefing just as the earth pony untangled his own interface. His stunned comment did at least serve to give the ‘Steed pilot a clue as to what he was going to find waiting for him. Though it certainly raised far more questions than it answered.

“...My team’s being moved to ‘Ready Status’,” the scarlet stallion stated in blunt surprise, He shifted his baffled gaze to Slipshod, “...we have an op? How?”

The earth pony was parsing his own message quickly, and only half heard what the flier had said, “we’re deploying? Where and how?” he now turned to meet the other pony and both shared a brief moment of solidarity in their surprise, “guess I’d better go and find out,” the earth pony said as he began to throw on his jumpsuit.

“Squelch wants me in the conference room. We’ll catch up later, ‘kay, Chit? I want to hear more about your coltfriend’s freckles…”

After all, he was still hungry…

Slipshod was the last to arrive in the ship’s conference room. A result of the combined factors of the distance of Blood Chit’s quarters from the briefing room, as well as the difficulties he’d had getting an uncooperative jumpsuit on. It hadn’t exactly been removed with the greatest of care at the time…

As expected, the rest of the company’s senior leaders were also in attendance. What he had not expected was to find that Twilight Sparkle had been included in the meeting as well. Sans guard. Admittedly, the concept of an ‘escort’ had largely become superfluous, given that it was the Steel Coursers who were effectively the ‘captives’ at the moment.

Slipshod wasn’t sure why it irked him that the alicorn was sitting in Valkyrie’s old seat. Not that the conference room had ‘assigned seats’ aside from Squelch’s. Everypony did tend to sit in the same place during each of their meetings though, having laid a de facto claim to them by virtue of choosing them at some point in the distant past. His annoyance was probably just some subconscious aversion to seeing a pony in the ‘wrong’ place. It passed soon enough.

It wasn’t like Val was going to be using that chair again anyway, whoever sat in it.

“Now that we’re all here,” the sage green unicorn mare began, the edge in her tone suggesting that she was annoyed at how long it had taken the ‘Steed pilot to arrive. At least, that was likely how everypony else in the room would take it. Slipshod knew that there were a litany of reasons that Squelch didn’t regard him as her favorite pony these days. His lack of punctuality wouldn’t be found anywhere near that top of that list though, “let’s begin with some situation updates:

“First off: we finally know where we are,” the ship’s commander said, her horn glowing as she manipulated the console controlling the projection table. Which, Slipshod noticed, had had its surface repaired since the last time he’d been in this room, “during recharges, the Rockhoof has been careful to keep us out of line-of-sight of any possible navsats in the systems we’ve been to. Likely an opsec concern.

“However, now that their ship’s heading insystem, Doppler was able to ping a sat and get a fix on our position,” an image of the Harmony Sphere manifested above the table briefly, before the stars began to shift and move about. Soon the projector had isolated a much smaller section of the settled galaxy. One of the stars was encircled by a bright blue light, hanging within a highlighted cluster of several more stars.

“Capensis,” the company’s owner announced, indicating the star system that the view was centered on, “one of the border worlds of the Farisian Empire,” she looked down at her terminal and briefly entered a few additional commands, “a brief history lesson for those that didn’t pay enough attention in whatever passed for an ancient history class wherever they went to school―which included myself until about fifteen minutes ago:

“After the fall of the Celestia League, several of the more...shall we say, ‘less sociable’ creatures took it upon themselves to emigrate out of the Sphere in an effort to stay out of the fighting that was breaking out. These included―but are not limited to―zebras, minotaurs, donkeys, griffons, felines, diamond dogs, and a host of others I’d never actually heard of before today.

“In any case, these creatures set themselves up with little enclaves beyond what was, at that time, ‘settled space’. They left early enough that there were still a few terraformers in operation. Presumably those have all broken down or are defunk now. But they didn’t have much else.

“Technologically and economically, they are middling, at best.

“The Farisian Empire is a zebra-centric star nation consisting of thirteen settled systems and a population in the single-digit billions. They’re not big, and their GDP is smaller than some major spaceports. Other than that, not much else is known, because hardly anypony back home cares.”

The unicorn looked back up from where she’d been skimming over the records she’d found and once more looked around at her command staff, “now onto more recent events:

“Two hours ago, sensors registered an Finder-Keeper event in the system. Thanks to Val’s upgrades, Doppler was even able to get us a set of coordinates for the jump translation…” she paused and shared a knowing look with the others, as though she was well aware of the sort of reaction that she was likely going to receive, “...the L1 of the only inhabited planet’s moon.”

Slipshod nearly got a headache from the sheer intensity of the shock and surprise that burst out of every other one of the room’s occupants. It was a mercy that he couldn’t experience feedback from his own emotional state, because he hadn’t handled the revelation much better.

“A moon’s L1?!” Doc Dee sputtered, sounding almost professionally offended at the notion, “even if the crew survived, the kinds of spatial stressors an exit like that places on the body are serious! Nausea, migraines, double-vision…” he was shaking his head in clear disgust.

“Who’d be crazy enough to risk a jump like that?” Tig asked skeptically, “you’d need positional data accurate down to the kilometer and minute!”

Squelch shrugged, “Well then they must have had it, because whoever it was made it into the system without misjumping to Celestia-knows-where. Something smaller detached and started burning towards the planet minutes later.

“Half an hour after that, we received a message from the Disciples,” she nodded her head in the direction of the purple alicorn, who now produced what Slipshod initially mistook for the same scroll that she’d received on the ship’s bridge when they’d first made contact with the Disciple WarShip. However, as she unfurled it, he realized that this missive was much longer, and had a lot more written on it than a four word greeting, “they’ve informed us that the planetary government is requesting help.

“The new arrivals are pirates, and this system is undeveloped by even Farisian standards. They don’t have the ability to defend themselves effectively.”

“A backwater system of a backwater star nation?” Slipshod flashed a sardonic smile as he interjected his own commentary into the conversation, “their local militia is probably still armed with spears and hoof-blades…” his slight was answered with a snort from Tig and a frown from Squelch. The earth pony cleared his throat and leaned back in his seat.

Doc Dee furrowed his brow, “...the zebras asked the Disciples for help?”

“Specifically, it seems,” was the unicorn mare’s dour reply. Her distaste was understandable. Not because she found the idea of somecreature rushing to the aid of zebras unpalatable―Squelch was hardly the bigoted sort. No, her displeasure was solely for the implications associated with what a request like that entailed.

First, it suggested that the local zebra government was familiar with the Disciples. Yet, at the same time, was possessed of a vastly differing opinion on the quality of their character. In the Harmony Sphere, a settlement that felt threatened by a Disciple raid would have been inclined to reach out to any local pirates for assistance in repelling them―and likely would have even received it. Even pirates held a dim view on the fanatics.

After all, most raiders launched their assaults for the purpose of obtaining wealth and materials. Understandable and forgivable motivations, given the state of scarcity in the Sphere. Heck, that was ostensibly the reason for the near-constant fighting amongst the Great Houses and their pet mercenary companies. Meanwhile, the Disciples―according to all sources labeled as ‘reputable’ by ComSpark―killed indiscriminately for the sheer glee of it.

Second, was the idea that the zebras might also not be the least bit put off by the fact that the Disciples in the system had arrived onboard a WarShip. It was a notion that made everypony uneasy. After all, surely such ancient weapons of war being controlled by the Disciples of Discord weren’t such a common sight in the Periphery as to be unremarkable…

...Right?

“...which brings us to our part in this,” Squelch continued, her lips curling into a sardonic smile of her own now. She waved a hoof in Twilight’s direction and receded back into her chair, crossing her hooves across her chest as she directed her attention to the alicorn.

Several eyebrows―including Slipshod’s―rose along with the purple mare as she stood up and began to address the room, “these pirates are known to the Disciples,” she explained, referring to the―rather lengthy―unfurled scroll in her telekinetic grasp, “they are ruthless, and formidable. The Rockhoof carries a company of ‘Steeds, yes, but the pirates will be fielding at least as many as well.

“They have asked for our assistance, and―after discussing the matter with your commander―the Steel Coursers have agreed to render it.”

Slipshod wasn’t quite able to keep himself from looking in Squelch’s direction in surprise. However, the unicorn was very pointedly avoiding looking anywhere other than the alicorn’s direction as the purple mare continued talking, “fundamentally, this will be treated as any other paid contract,” Twilight said, “the Galloway is faster and more maneuverable than the Disciple’s own Friendship-class DropShip. If it departs now, it can reach the planet quickly enough to intercept the pirates before they reach the principal settlement.”

The earth pony blinked, looked around the room hesitantly, and then raised a tentative hoof, “uh...you said the pirates were deploying a ‘Steed company...right? As in: twelve ‘Steeds?”

“Obviously, it’s impossible to know until the pirates have actually debarked their forces exactly how many ‘Steeds they will be fielding,” Twilight pointed out, “but that is their standard operating profile for raids like this one, according to the Disciples.”

“No offense, Rosie,” the earth pony responded, continuing to use her pseudonym while in the presence of the rest of the crew, “but even you’re not that good,” otherwise, she wouldn’t have been driven off by Chrysalis’ ambush five hundred years ago, he thought to himself, “two ‘Steeds can’t beat a company.”

Squelch chimed in now as well, “our mission from ComSpark is to ingratiate ourselves to the Disciples,” she explained for the benefit of the rest of the command staff. She and the two ‘Steed pilots knew, of course, that that ‘operation’ was a farce, “helping them out in a jam is a perfect way to begin.”

“And exactly how much use are we going to be to them after both our ‘Steeds get slagged in a hopeless fight?” Mig asked, obviously dubious about the merit of such a mission. Slipshod found himself in agreement with her point.

“Our objective is one of harassment only,” the alicorn sternly informed the gathered ponies, “Slipshod and I will deploy as a screening force with the objective of slowing the pirates’ advance until the Disciple DropShip can land.

“As such, we need not get into any drawn out confrontations. Both the Rainbow Dash and the Crystal Cavalier are fast enough that only lighter units will be able to pursue them,” she looked at Slipshod now, “the pair of us should have little difficulty neutralizing light and medium tonnage ‘Steeds that insist on engaging us, correct?”

The stallion frowned. At face value, that seemed reasonable; but he was experienced enough to know that it was still a risk. All it would take is a couple of lucky―or unlucky, rather―hits to a leg joint, and suddenly any heavier opponents would have little trouble in running the pair of them down. Still, both of them had long-range weaponry that should hopefully afford them enough of a head-start if a withdrawal was warranted. So he nodded his assent.

“Good,” Squelch said, getting up from her seat, “the two of you get dressed and meet with the twins for your pre-launch checklists. We’re undocking in five minutes and burning for the planet,” she started towards the exit, murmuring under her breath, “might as well void the warranty on these engines. Not like I can ever get them serviced at a license dockyard again anyway…”

The pair of kirin mares stood up next, both exchanging frowns with each other, “and we have some reactor housings to put back together in record time,” Tig said with a grimace.

“Literally every time we try to service the mana injectors,” Mig growled, “every. Time.”

“And I guess I should brush up on zebra-pony communicable diseases,” the ivory physician said as he stood up and made to leave as well.

“That seems a little excessive, don’t you think?” Slipshod said, arching his brow at the doctor.

“Hardly,” he replied matter-of-factly, “it's well established medical knowledge that populations which have been isolated from one another can cultivate diseases which are harmless to them, but dangerous to new arrivals. Until I’ve done a few blood screenings of the locals, I recommend against any prolonged physical...contact,” he said the last with a pointed look in the earth pony stallion’s direction, prompting the ‘Steed pilot to scowl.

“Very funny.”

“Very serious,” Doc Dee replied stoically, “no planetside trysts until I say otherwise,” and with that, it was only Slipshod and Twilight in the room together.

The earth pony eyed the purple mare for several seconds before his gaze drifted to the scroll, “so what’s up with those anyway? A bit ‘low tech’, isn’t it?”

The alicorn levitated the rolled vellum up to eye level, her expression growing distant for a brief moment as she stared at the parchment, “...before digital media, this was how I received nearly all of my correspondence: scrolls sent via enchanted dragonfire. Instantaneous transmission of a message from anywhere on Equus―and later, the galaxy―right to my hooftips.”

The stallion cocked his brow, “dragonfire? Not changeling magic? Because the color of those flames…” he let the observation hang in the air between them.

The mare chuckled, “I once conducted a very thorough study on that exact phenomenon. Turns out it’s just a coincidence,” she said with an almost apologetic shrug, as though she anticipated that that was not a very satisfactory answer. From what he could feel, she hadn’t found it to be one either, “or, if there is a connection, it predates any existing written accounts.

“Changeling magic is obviously innate, and so the color it manifests as is the color it manifests as. The dragonfire enchantment is the alteration of the natural order. After all, normal dragonfire is the same color as any regular fire,” she said, her tone and demeanor becoming more analytical. Suddenly, Slipshod felt like he was back in one of the academy’s lecture halls.

He didn’t like it.

“I learned the spell from Celestia,” Twilight continued, seeming to actually get some measure of enjoyment out of relating her ancient academic adventure, “who once told me that she learned it from pre-Equestrian zebra shamans. Now, a lot of zebra rituals weren’t written down; they were passed on through oral tradition. It served as a sort of ‘barrier to entry’ for the position of shaman: they had to be cognitively able to retain a perfect rote memorization of their profession’s oral history in order to be inducted into their ranks.

“Fortunately, I had tutored the great grandmare of one of the stallions on their High Council, and he was willing to recite for me the portion of their tradition dealing with that particular enchantment and its origins,” she frowned now, “unfortunately, it had been on the condition that I didn’t write it down either. I couldn’t even quote him in the citations of the study I wrote up, because that would have counted as a written record.

“My paper was rejected under peer review by the Journal Arcana Equina because of ‘insufficiently supported assertions’. That one really hurt to swallow…” she let out a mournful sigh, but then delved back into her account.

“Anyway, according to him, the zebra shamans of old learned the spell from ancient thestrals, of all ponies!” her uptick in both tone and emotional excitement suggested that Slipshod was supposed to find the revelation as astounding as she had―and apparently still did―however, the earth pony could safely say that he was very unmoved by that information. So he merely regarded the mare in bored silence.

Twilight let out an aggrieved sigh and sought to explain the significance of the revelation to him, “by the time Nightmare Moon rose to power, thestrals were as magically illiterate as pegasi!” she stressed, almost as though this was something that he was supposed to have been aware of already, “but―apparently―thousands of years before that, they were creating high-tier magical enchantments?!

“What happened in their history that erased that level of magical acumen among their race?” Slipshod blinked, and then shrugged, “exactly! Nopony knows; and that’s the point!

“Oh, I was so tempted to revive the study of time magic in order to find out. Of course, I’m the one that outlawed any further research into those sorts of spells after...things...happened; so that would’ve been a bit hypocritical of me…”

“So...not changeling magic,” Slipshod offered by way of succinct summation,

“Not as far as I can tell.”

“Cool,” the stallion shook away the sense of detached apathy that he hadn’t felt since his days at the Sandhoof Academy and turned towards the door, “let’s get our barding on; we’re probably already in orbit by now…”

“Hey, you asked!” the alicorn huffed indignantly.

“Orbital scans show the raiders making their way west towards the planetary capital,” Squelch’s voice crackled over his helmet’s headset as the earth pony completed the last of his pre-launch checks. He could feel the turbulence of the DropShip’s atmospheric entry through the Cavalier’s piloting couch. They’d be deploying in a minute or so, “unsurprisingly, local defense forces haven’t been able to do much to slow them down.”

The stallion was unable to suppress a grimace at the news. Not because it signaled any sort of foreboding omens―he hadn’t expected to hear anything different. No, his annoyance was prompted by the thought that any of the local forces would have bothered to even try to stop the pirates. They had to have known how futile and ineffective it would have been to try and stop a company of BattleSteeds with mere ground vehicles.

Unless the vehicle force possessed stupendously overwhelming numbers, or some other advantage, it was nothing but an exercise in suicide as for as the stallion was concerned.

“The Disciple commander says they’ll have their forces deployed and ready to intercept the raiders in half an hour,” his unicorn employer continued, “but you’ll have to keep them from reaching the last phase line for that to happen. Otherwise the drop zone’ll be too hot for a deployment.”

Slipshod reviewed the map of the engagement area, noting the marked points of interest. While Capensis was far from what most ponies who hailed from the Harmony Sphere would consider to be a ‘developed world’, it did still have some of the fundamental amenities like aerial defense batteries. Nothing even remotely approaching the level that one would see on a frequently contested world in the Sphere, to be sure, but enough to give a single DropShip pause and decide it was more amenable to debark their forces outside its coverage area.

As such, the pirates had made planetfall about a hundred kilometers outside of the city. They were proceeding relatively slowly, suggesting that a number of their units were in the upper end of the heavy-tonnage range. On the bright side, it had bought the Steel Coursers the time needed to beat them to the city itself. Though, not by much. Maybe a dozen kilometers or so. Enough that if they got pushed too far back to quickly, they’d basically be fighting in the city itself. At that point, it would be questionable if their actions had actually done any good for the residents.

Phase lines had been established to help him and Twilight track their withdrawals, and gauge how quickly they were being pushed back. They had worked out minimum allowable times for each line of retreat. If they were forced back too far too fast, the Galloway would be called in to retrieve them.

This was a risky operation with a frankly low chance of success given the odds involved. The Disciples seemed to acknowledge and understand that, and they weren’t asking for he and Twilight to defend the city to the death. Slipshod idly wondered if they’d have felt that way if anypony other than their long-lost princess had been one of the ‘Steed pilots involved.

“Remember: this is a delaying action,” she stressed, “no heroics. No getting into brawls if it can be avoided. Pin the enemy down and then fall back when they try to flank you,” Slipshod frowned at the thought of his combat inexperienced boss attempting to explain tactics to him and Twilight. Likely she was saying all of that for her own benefit, rather than theirs. There were obviously quite a few factors at play that made this operation significantly more stressful than similar ones they’d conducted back in the Sphere.

“But if I can’t act heroically, then how will I impress all of those fine and exotic striped mares down there enough to attract a personal harem to take with me for the rest of our trip?” the golden earth pony quipped, looking to inject an iota of levity into the tone of the briefing, “since cleaning out my cabin, I figure I’ve made room for about a half dozen nubile young zebras.”

“...Gallop Two?”

“Yes?” Twilight replied.

“If you see Gallop One in trouble, don’t help him.”

“Acknowledged.”

“Harsh, but fair,” Slipshod said, nodding to himself, feeling a little smile touch his lips.

“ETA to drop: thirty seconds,” the sage unicorn mare said. Even through the distortion of the radio, the stallion could hear that there was a little less stress than there had been a moment ago. Hearing the earth pony making lecherous remarks during an op served to add a level of familiarity that helped to ease some of her tension. She knew how to deal with Slipshod’s off-color commentary, after all.

Slipshod both heard and felt the ventral thrusters roar to life as the Mustang-class DropShip slowed its descent and came to a hover above the drop zone. The doors below his Crystal Cavalier slid open, revealing the dusty brown surface below. Once the ship had come to a stop, the cabling holding his ‘Steed in place released, and both the mechanical equine and its pilot fell out of the belly of the ship. The earth pony braced himself as the ‘Steed’s leg actuators worked overtime to absorb as much of the force of the drop as possible, but he was still significantly rattled by the landing.

Through the cockpit’s forward viewport, he saw the cerulean and yellow Rainbow Dash touch down daintily upon the ground, riding the plumes of its jump jets. He couldn’t help but frown at the sharp contrast of their landings. For a second, he considered asking Tig to outfit his Cavalier with some jump jets of his own, but soon discarded the idea. He wasn’t nearly familiar, or skilled, enough with the use of the thrusters to make any advantages they might be able to provide him in combat worth whatever armor plating or weapons would need to be sacrificed in order to find the tonnage necessary to add them.

Still, they would have been useful in that exact moment.

That thought was pushed aside to make way for more pertinent ones. Specifically, the current location and vector of the incoming enemy BattleSteed company. Without Valkyrie or her Parasprite to provide them with real-time reconnaissance, he and Twilight had been forced to spend the entirety of the trip to the planet planning out their strategy and making contingencies. Fortunately, the Disciples had been able to provide them with decently detailed topographic maps of the area.

They approximated the likely course of the enemy’s forces according to how the terrain would affect their movement, and selected several advantageous ambush locations for each likely route. Their plan was to find the enemy, anticipate which of the routes they were using, and then assume the appropriate positions where they’d be able to launch their attacks.

As Squelch had stressed earlier, the idea was not to get into a prolonged engagement. He and the alicorn simply did not have the firepower for such a thing. They would instead pick out specific targets, attempt to cripple or lame them with their first few volleys, and then fall back to the next ambush site. Hopefully, if they were lucky, they’d be able to lame one or more of the enemy’s ‘Steeds, slowing the whole element enough for the Disciple DropShip to have time to get their forces into position for a more sustained repelling operation.

“Move to Point Apple and see if you can get a look of where they’re at,” the earth pony said. With her jump jets, Twilight’s Rainbow Dash was better served as their scout. She’d be able to ‘peek’ over the crest of the ridgeline long enough to get eyes on the enemy. Hopefully without exposing herself long enough for them to get a good look at where and what she was. They’d certainly get a flash on their sensors for a second or so, but that wasn’t a lot of time to learn much about a sensor contact.

“Will do,” the alicorn acknowledged, her heavy ‘Steed turning and cantering off towards the eastern ridgeline.

Meanwhile, Slipshod turned his own attention to his ‘Steed’s communications suite and tuned his receiver to the channel that they’d been given for the local planetary defense forces. Perhaps they might have some additional information to share that would prove helpful, such as descriptions of the ‘Steeds involved and the formations that they were using.

“―second platoon, withdraw!” a stallion’s frantic voice could be heard yelling over the frequency, “you’ve got hostiles three clicks out and closing fast! LRM carriers are gone; you’ve got no fire support up there!”

“Evac’s not complete,” came a mare responded, “it took us longer than expected to package up some of the ICU patients. We’ll be able to move out in five minutes.”

“Five minutes?!” the incredulity in the stallion’s tone was palpable, “turn your fucking head northeast; you can see the enemy ‘Steeds! You need to leave now!”

“I’m not leaving them behind,” her determination to do her duty would likely be considered commendable by some. Slipshod, however, had to wonder at the ‘heroism’ of electing to die with civilians who wouldn’t be saved either way. He was hard-pressed to conceive of what dying along with them accomplished for anypony.

“You’re a damn fool,” the earth pony found himself in agreement with the stallion’s assessment, “...I’m moving the Partisan into position,” he continued in a resigned tone, “I can’t promise you five minutes, but...I’ll do what I can.”

“Understood, sir. Thank you.”

“You can thank me by trimming down that time,” while the stallion continued speaking, it was clear that the target of his next directions were somepony other than the mare from earlier, “move the partisan forward; target the Gilda! Fire once you have a―shit! They’ve spotted us; get down―!”

Static.

A few seconds later, the mare from earlier could be heard again, “Major Sable? Sir? Shit. I think they hit the CP. We need to hurry up and...oh fuck; they’re here. Everypony, back inside the hospit―!”

Slipshod was unable to restrain his eye roll as a second burst of telltale static monopolized the frequency. After several seconds, it was clear that no other transmitters were in range which were using that channel. It hadn’t been a complete wash, at least; he’d learn the identity of one of the ‘Steed types that they’d be facing. He reached down and brought up a profile for a common Gilda variant.

Large-bore autocannon, medium magical energy weapons, an LRM, and jump capable. A lot of firepower for a medium ‘Steed, to be sure; but it was something of a ‘glass cannon’. If Twilight was able to connect with it with both of her PPCs, that might actually be enough to break it in half, if she hit it right. Though, that was naturally only a possibility if the alicorn decided that she wanted to fight like her life―and the lives of millions of innocent civilians―depended on it.

Personally, the earth pony didn’t particularly care whether this mission ‘succeeded’ or not, so long as he survived it. Which wasn’t to say that he was quite willing to abandon their objectives right out of hoof either. The Disciples would be watching his performance during the operation. Anything but his best efforts wouldn’t do much to help assure them that he absolutely, one hundred percent, pinkie-swearsies, wasn’t a changeling.

So, he was certainly going to give a good account of himself in this mission. Maybe he’d even manage to get a kill or two on some of the lighter BattleSteeds that the raiders had brought with them as vanguard units.

His biggest concern was how much effort Twilight would put into getting him out of any trouble he might find himself getting pulled into. Squelch’s earlier ‘joke’ aside, Slipshod was keenly aware that the purple mare likely felt no great compunction to kill other creatures in order to save the life of a changeling. If things started to go poorly for him, the stallion strongly suspected that he’d be on his own.

Meanwhile, he’d have to do everything he could to bail Twilight out if the situation called for it. After all, if she died, his dreams of unseating Chrysalis likely would die with her. If the Disciples hadn’t seen fit to move against the queen in five centuries, he couldn’t conceive of them doing so at some future date either without the support of the once―and maybe future―alicorn monarch.

“I got a read on an enemy lance,” Twilight reported, her tone tinged with frustration.

The stallion’s brow furrowed in confusion, “‘lance’?”

“They split up,” the alicorn informed him, the source of her aggravation now clear.

It made a certain amount of sense, the earth pony supposed, now that he thought about it. The raiders had to know that this planet didn’t possess much in the way of forces that could offer meaningful resistance to ‘Steeds. With that in mind, keeping their forces concentrated in a single company limited the area that they could cover in whatever timetable that they’d set for themselves.

While splitting their forces made truly ‘stopping’ the raiders, even for a short while, effectively impossible, it also afforded the two mercenary pilots an opportunity to hurt them. Severely. Two ‘Steeds against a full company? That would have been tantamount to suicide.

But...two of the deadliest Celestia League era BattleSteeds ever fielded in near-mint condition against a lance of whatever ‘Steeds these Periphery-based pirates had managed to piece back together from scraps? Slipshod liked those odds a lot better.

“Alright, new plan,” the earth pony declared, “no ambushes. We move in fast, we hit that lance hard. Any mayday that they send off will either prompt the other lances to withdraw off planet or chase us down. Either way we get them away from the city. Sound good?”

“Admittedly, I do find the idea of fighting only four opponents a lot more agreeable than twelve,” she acknowledged.

“Alright, let’s form up. Stay at my four o’clock on the way in,” he began ordering as he spurred his Cavalier up the side of the mountain ridge that Twilight was currently perched on, “we’ll work from lightest to heaviest,” he declared.

There were typically two schools of thought where the matter of prioritizing targets was concerned, and each had their merits.

One was to focus fire on the biggest ‘Steed on the opponent’s side at the start of the engagement. After all, the heavier the ‘Steed, the greater the threat it tended to represent. Removing it removed more guns from the enemy’s side of the fight. This in turn hopefully more greatly reduced the damage that your side took for the rest of the fight.

The downside to such a strategy was that heavier ‘Steeds also―by their nature―took longer to bring down because they tended to be more heavily armored. Which meant that your side was subjected to the full weapons complement of the enemy force for much longer until the target was finally taken out of the fight. Which translated into more damage taken, and a greater chance that something important would be lost.

Like his life.

For this reason, Slipshod tended to prefer eliminating lighter ‘Steeds first. They might not hit the hardest, but they went down much more quickly, and so it was easier to reduce the overall volume of enemy fire much faster. You obviously had to be on your guard for the heavier opponent, who’d be able to hurt you badly if you let them, but it was easier to prance around a heavy ‘Steed than lighter ones. If you weren’t paying attention, a Breezy could get behind you and just drill into your ‘Steed’s rear with impudence. Even an assault-massed BattleSteed like a Radical was easy enough to keep from getting behind you in a melee.

“And, Twilight?”

“Yes?”

“Whoever these guys are, they’re not worth your mercy. Okay? Trust me,” he doubted that she’d been listening in on the same broadcast that he had, and he didn’t really have time to convince her that he’d heard the live massacre of a hospital full of sick and injured zebras.

Honestly, it unnerved him a little too. Mostly because of how unusual this level of malevolence was to see, even among raiders. At least back in the Sphere. At the end of the day, pirates in the Harmony Sphere were out for resources and materials that they could sell for cash. It wasn’t anything personal. So they certainly never went out of their way to kill anypony that wasn’t standing in their way.

If for no other reason than because missiles weren’t free. Massacring civilians, thus, wasn’t cost-effective.

That didn’t seem to be the mindset of this group however. It was a level of depravity that Slipshod hadn’t seen from ‘Steed pilots first-hoof before. Certainly not from licensed mercenaries or House Regulars in the Harmony Sphere. A part of him even felt a little affronted to see ‘Steeds being used for something like this. He was certainly not a noble espouser of warrior ideals or anything like that; but he respected his craft enough to know that you didn’t waste a multimillion C-bit BattleSteed by using it to stomp on helpless bystanders.

It was...unprofessional.

“Set speed at sixty kph,” Slipshod instructed, “nothing fancy; center of mass hits,” while the chest and trunk of a steed were typically the most heavily armored parts of a ‘Steed, and thus could absorb more damage, it was the surest way to bring down an opponent. With lighter chassis, there also tended to not be all that much more ablative plating when compared to other parts of the ‘Steed anyway. A Pipsqueak or Breezy actually tended to have fewer tons of armor on their cores than even his Wild Bronco had had on a leg, “move out.”

The earth pony throttled up his Cavalier to the speed he’d indicated. It was very much near the maximum run speed of his BattleSteed, while still leaving him a little bit to play with if the need arose. Twilight’s Rainbow Dash was capable of quite a bit more, of course.

Both ‘Steeds crested the rise and immediately began galloping down the rocky slope on the other side of the ridge. This was the first time that Slipshod got a clear view of precisely what they were dealing with, though it wasn’t far off the mark from what he’d anticipated under the circumstances. The enemy lance was running a balanced mix of tonnages. A single light SneakyShy was leading the diamond formation, followed by a pair of Gildas, and a Riflemare bringing up the rear. A lot of firepower, to be sure, but not an overwhelming amount to deal with. Especially if they managed to down one or two of the enemy’s ‘Steeds by the time they got into an all-out brawl.

Slipshod selected the light BattleSteed out in front of the formation as his first target and carefully teased his reticle onto it. The distance between them was still well over the kilometer, but that number was dropping fast. He could technically land a hit with his prismatic projection cannon from here, but the chromatic coil of destructive light would have lost a lot of its potency by then. It was best to wait until he was within five hundred meters.

One weapon system that was perfectly capable of striking their target while not suffering ill effects of the extreme range was Twilight’s forty long range missiles. Missiles, the earth pony noted, which the purple alicorn had yet to fire, even though more than enough time had elapsed for her to achieve a firm sensor lock on their first target. A missile barrage like that would ravage a frail ‘Steed like a SneakyShy. If it didn’t destroy it outright, it certainly would have chewed away just about all of the lighter chassis’ armor, and left its internal systems vulnerable to a hit from his PPC or pulsed energy cannons to finish it off.

She wasn’t firing them though.

Slipshod felt his teeth gritting in frustration. While he couldn’t honestly say that he was surprised that the mare wasn’t taking his earlier remark about showing mercy to these raiders to heart, it was nevertheless quite annoying.

It didn’t take the enemy lance long to realize that they had company. Though it did take them slightly longer than the golden stallion would have thought to react to their appearance. Presumably, that hesitation had been the result of their surprise at seeing a pair of heavy ‘Steeds coming at them on a world that shouldn’t have had this sort of firepower at hoof. Of course, these raiders would have been able to do basic math and recognize that they had both a clear numerical and weight advantage, so they probably weren’t terribly concerned about their chances in this fight.

Slipshod did have to wonder whether or not they’d taken into account the ‘Steeds that they were going up against beyond their raw tonnage. The Rainbow Dash would have had little trouble facing off against an assault class ‘Steed on its own. Even his Crystal Cavalier was far superior to most contemporary ‘Steeds of its class, thanks to the Celestia League era weapons and systems that it possessed. They were also in near-perfect condition. While the enemy’s Riflemare had likely been rebuilt from salvaged scraps a dozen times over.

Probably not, he decided as the range to the SneakyShy finally dropped below five hundred meters. His ‘Steed’s side-mounted lance belched forth a helix of rainbow light which struck the lighter opponent, who had been charging headlong at him, squarely in the chest. The impact of the heavy weapon was enough to briefly stagger the SneakyShy, dropping it out of its own sprint. The earth pony’s eyes darted briefly to the display showing his target’s condition. Sure enough, every scrap of ablative plating had been dissolved absorbing that initial hit, leaving little of significance behind to ward off another hit.

He fired both of his pulsed cannons.

To the enemy pilot’s credit, they must have seen what was coming and took commendable actions as a result. Slipshod saw a flare of blue flame ignite from the top of the SneakyShy’s head and rocket upward just before the sapphire pulses of light drilled into the ‘Steed’s chest. The small metal equine’s reactor casing shattered beneath the abuse and promptly detonated in a violet ball of magical fire. The ‘Steed was gone, and likely unsalvageable by even mechanical wizards of Mig’s and Tig’s skills, but the pilot would at least live on to learn from the experience.

And then there were three.

The SneakyShy’s blitzed destruction apparently was enough to inform the raider lance that they needed to adopt a strategy other than ‘charge headlong into the fire of more advanced ‘Steeds’. The Gilda’s broke off in either direction, seeking to flank their opponents from the sides. The Riflemare continued to plod along straight at him and Twilight though, likely trusting that its heavier plating would help to keep it intact after sustaining more than a single alpha strike. Which was probably a fair assessment. It was finally opening fire though.

Slipshod felt his Chrystal Cavalier tremble as autocannon shells struck home. Soon after, the projectiles were joined by beams of indigo light. His armor indicators flashed, but the damage was comparatively light. The Cavalier had been initially built with a lot of armor in mind. Designed to be able to take a heavy pounding as it charged into battle to deliver devastating melee strikes with its lance. While such an archaic combat doctrine had been long since abandoned as the finer points of BattleSteed tactics were refined, and later revisions of the Cavalier saw some of its armor reduced to free up tonnage for more ranged weapons, the design was still much better protected than many ‘Steeds of its tonnage.

He actually had nearly twice the ablative plating of the Riflemare. Half again as much as the Gildas. In fact…

Slipshod had been about to order Twilight to break right with him so that they could concentrate their efforts on one of the flanking medium ‘Steeds and stick to his initial plan of working their way up the tonnage chain, dealing with the Riflemare last. However, that plan had been devised before he’d known that the heavy ‘Steed that they’d be facing was one which was so lightly armored for its weight. The fact was that the Riflemare would go down faster than either of their two medium opponents.

“You break right,” he barked over the radio to his alicorn lancemate, “I’ve got the Riflemare.”

“...acknowledged.”

He saw her blip moving off on his sensor display. This still left the Gilda that had gone left uncontested, but there was no helping that. As though the pilot had sensed his thoughts on the matter, the earth pony received a warning that an enemy had acquired a missile lock on his ‘Steed. Seconds later he was rocked by a succession of explosions as those missiles hit home along his Cavalier’s left barrel. Again his cockpit displays flashed alerts about the condition of his ‘Steed’s armor, but the damage was still minimal. For the moment. The Gilda flanking around him was keeping its distance, wary that he might turn and bring his heavier weapons to bear on them if it proved to be annoying enough.

However, the stallion had locked his focus onto the Riflemare, the pilot of which seemed to have taken note that the Cavalier wasn’t breaking off like the Rainbow Dash had. The heavy ‘Steed slowed to a stop, and then began reversing as quickly as it could. Which, honestly, wasn’t very quickly at all. Its weapons cycled continuously, the dual pairs of energy and projectile cannons mounted to either side of its back spitting out a steady barrage of destructive light and explosive shells. Sapphire beams danced around the earth pony as he guided his Cavalier into a gentle slalom. It wasn’t much of an ‘evasive maneuver’, but it was better than galloping in a perfectly straight line. It at least kept the enemy pilot from being able to easily focus their fire on a single point of his armor.

He lost a good bit of armor on the way in, some segments bleeding into the orange as more than half of the ablative plating was lost beneath the onslaught of fire from the Riflemare. But it was nothing compared to what he inflicted upon the retreating ‘Steed the moment his heavier armaments had recharged.

Again, he started with the PPC. The rainbow helix slammed the Riflemare square in the chest. Twin pulses of sapphire light drilled even deeper still. This wasn’t enough to finish off the heavy ‘Steed like they had the SneakyShy―it wasn’t that lightly armored. But he also wasn’t done yet. Successive viridian columns spat out from the center of his own torso as his medium magical energy cannons were triggered in quick succession. Each of these carved away at the last vestiges of the enemy’s armor, leaving their internal systems exposed and vulnerable.

Slipshod throttled up, squeezing out the last few bits of speed that had been held in reserve. He grit his teeth and braced for impact.

His Chrystal Cavalier’s lance struck home, sinking deep into the bowels of the Riflemare, unfettered by any thick armor plating that might have deflected it away. He outmassed the enemy ‘Steed, and both of them had been traveling in the same direction as well. Physics became the earth pony’s ally as his superior momentum merged with the Riflemare’s, and caused it to be pitched upwards and backwards. Sparks and fire spewed forth from the hole his lance had carved into the heavy ‘Steed’s chest. He wasn’t able to deliver an internal PPC shot the way that he had with the Sombra, but he didn’t need to.

Again, the stallion caught sight of rocket flames out of the corner of his cockpit’s viewport as the raider pilot recognized their doom and ejected. The now inert Riflemare ceased to resist its fate as it fell onto its backside and flopped over limply. The Cavalier’s lance tore free in a shower of twisted steel and alloy frame.

Only two raiders remained.

Slipshod’s cockpit shuddered once more as missiles pelted his ‘Steed’s hindquarters. He grimaced, but wasn’t concerned quite yet. The Gilda was still keeping its distance from him, clearly wary. It was faster than he was though. Strictly speaking, it could easily kite him if so inclined, firing at him with its missiles while keeping itself out of effective range of his PPC. He’d be able to land hits with it of course, but the sturdy medium ‘Steed would be able to weather the greatly reduced damage well enough. On the other hoof, his Cavalier should also be capable of surviving enough missile barrages to run the enemy’s magazines dry.

Meaning that this would turn into a stalemate.

At least, it would if it was just between him and the Gildas. Twilight’s Rainbow Dash was fast enough to keep up with them, and she could double their combined missile output on her own.

The question was whether or not she was willing to use them. He doubted it.

Out of curiosity, the earth pony locked his sensors onto the medium ‘Steed that the purple alicorn was engaged with. He felt a mixture of frustration and satisfaction when he saw that, while it was clear that Twilight was making an effort to avoid outright destroying the ‘Steed and risk killing its pilot, she had managed to cripple most of its weapons. At the moment, it had lost its autocannon and half its energy weapons compliment. Two of its four limbs also showed significant damage. Another good hit or two should be able to effectively lame the Gilda and keep it from escaping.

Unfortunately, that did not seem to be Twilight’s intent, he soon discovered.

Aghast, Slipshod watched as the Rainbow Dash seemed to cease firing altogether. A moment later, the Gilda that she had been tussling with wheeled about and began to sprint away at its maximum available speed. His piloting couch trembled as his ‘Steed sustained another hit, this time from an autocannon. A second later, the other Gilda rocketed past him, riding the flames of its jump jets, as it sped to catch up with its partner. The whole time, Twilight made no effort to finish crippling her target.

She was letting them go.

Slipshod keyed on his radio, “the fuck are you doing?” he snapped angrily, “finish them off!”

“They’re withdrawing,” came the alicorn’s indignant response, “there’s no point in continued hostilities.”

“No point in―?!” the earth pony let out an aggravated groan, “do you have any concept of how many zebras these raiders have killed?”

“Will killing those two raiders bring the dead back to life?” she asked tersely.

“No, of course not―”

“Then killing them serves no purpose,” she concluded, “I have spoken with them, and instructed them to leave without further incident. The matter is resolved.”

Slipshod found himself blinking in utter bafflement. She’d what? That was it then? She told them to go, and now they were leaving, and that was that? Was she serious?

The stallion desperately wanted to point out how ludicrous what she’d said was, but thought better of it. Frankly, they didn’t have time for him to sit around berating her for her naivety. They’d stopped one lance of raiders, yes, but that still left two others that needed to be dealt with before they reached the city and reeked untold havoc on the populace there.

“Fine. Whatever,” he relented. It wasn’t like they were getting kill bounties anyway, “form up and let’s head for...Nav Ferrier. We’ll set up at the phase line there and see what comes our way.”

The alicorn didn’t fight him on that point, at least, and guided her ‘Steed back to his four o’clock as the two of them headed for the designated point. Slipshod took the opportunity to take a closer look at how his Cavalier had held up during the fight. His front sections were roughed up, but not quite critical yet. Another such charge at a heavier ‘Steed was probably ill-advised though. He’d have to keep a closer eye on how often he exposed his ‘Steed’s chest to enemy fire for the remainder of the operation.

His left hindquarters were leaning further into the orange than he’d have liked too. A result of that Gilda having unfettered access to his flank while he’d been dealing with the Riflemare. There’d been no helping it. Honestly, if he’d joined Twilight in her fight with the one Gilda, he’d have probably come out even worse on that flank, as both the other medium and the heavy raider ‘Steeds would have been hitting him in that quadrant. His chest would have been much less scuffed up, but he liked the idea of being a single hard hit away from losing a leg a lot less than having a battered torso.

He just needed to give the enemy his right side to shoot at for a while and he should be fine. For at least the next fight. Hopefully the Disciples would be deployed by then and he and Twilight could withdraw back to the Galloway.

By the time they’d made sensor contact with the next group, Slipshod was feeling much less sure about their chances. This looked to be the raider’s ‘heavy hitter’ lance. The lightest ‘Steed it had was another Gilda, supported by two heavy chassis in the form of an Iron Will and a Shining Armor, with an assault tonnage Ballista in support. Unlike the last group of raiders they had encountered, this lance was more than capable at extreme ranges, and that Iron Will, with its massive alloyed axe clutched in its right hand, would have little trouble besting his Cavalier in a melee tussle if he let it get close enough.

A real fight like last time was out of the question. They had to go for mere harassing actions and hope that they didn’t get roughed up too badly in the process, “keep moving, take potshots when you can, and try to draw them back north,” he advised the alicorn while maneuvering his own ‘Steed to at least attempt to get around to the enemy’s rear.

They saw him coming of course. Missile lock warnings blared, and the earth pony felt his gut tighten as he saw the stream of LRMs arcing skyward from the Ballista. Flashbacks of his confrontation back on Lupine passed through his mind. Hopefully this wouldn’t end in the same manner. He heaved hard on the controls of his BattleSteed and did his best to show the incoming missiles his mostly pristine right side. His command couch shuddered with the impacts. Not every missile scored a hit, but a lot of them did. He snapped off a shot with his prismatic projection cannon, but the shot went wide as he was forced to quickly duck away from a hail of heavy energy cannon fire from the enemy heavy ‘Steeds.

Twilight was having a much easier time evading enemy fire as her jump jets allowed her to strafe from side to side while keeping her forward-facing weapons on target. Her own twin PPCs scored a hit on the Ballista, focused on one of the missile racks. Even the combined firepower of those cannons wasn’t quite enough to take the launcher out of action though, not at these extreme ranges. Another dual blast might finish it off though.

On the bright side, they were proving to be successful in their objective: the raider lance had turned away from the city and seemed content to focus on the pair of Steel Coursers who had showed up. Of course, that silver lining brought with it its own dark cloud in the form of the better part of three hundred tons of BattleSteed firing on them. Slipshod didn’t have a hope of avoiding all of it. His armor was relentlessly ground away beneath the withering hail of enemy fire. As maneuverable as his alicorn companion was, even her Rainbow Dash couldn’t evade such saturating missile and autocannon fire.

The earth pony pilot darted in where he dared in order to score a hit with his pulsed energy cannons, and sought to retreat just as quickly before the enemy could respond with their own heavier weapons. He paid for these sallies though, as more armor was chipped away. The Gilda was proving itself to be exceptionally troublesome. It was the quickest and most agile of the enemy ‘Steeds, and was decently armored to boot. More than once its autocannon found its mark on his Cavalier, and made a good account of itself where his ablative plating was concerned.

They eventually managed to shear off one of the large twenty-count launchers from the Ballista’s back, cutting its bombardment abilities down to nearly half, but that didn’t seem to significantly improve their situation in the short term.

Then things got worse as the third lance of raiders showed up. This one had the same weight class composition as the first, while fielding slightly different ‘Steeds, but Slipshod didn’t believe for a moment that they’d be able to deal with it nearly as easily as the first.

The raiders seemed to be of the same mind on the matter, as the heavier lance began to turn back towards the city not long after the other lance had appeared on sensors. They were confident that the lighter ‘Steeds would be able to finish off the heavily damaged Steel Courser duo without help from their heavier companions. In the stallion’s own estimate: they probably weren’t wrong. Even the Rainbow Dash was looking worse for wear. Slipshod wanted to believe that things would be going better for them if Twilight wasn’t still clearly holding herself back, but that honestly probably wouldn’t have been the case, given the odds against them.

This fight had never been intended as one that they’d be able to actually win anyway, he knew. Their job had just been to buy time. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like quite enough of it had been bought yet. The Disciples were still five minutes out from having their forces deployed. There wasn’t anything notable left of the planetary defense forces to stand in their way.

He and Twilight were it.

Slipshod activated his mic, “you keep playing grab-flank like that with these raiders, and they’ll make it to that city,” he informed the alicorn coolly, “now, I couldn’t give two shits about how many zebras get killed when that happens.

“How much sleep are you going to lose though?”

“If we do enough damage, they’ll pull back to their DropShip and leave,” Twilight insisted, “we just need them to see that whatever they’re trying to accomplish here isn’t worth the cost.”

“And what are they trying to accomplish, princess?” the stallion inquired pointedly, “this isn’t like any raid I’ve seen. Nothing in that city is valuable to them. They should be targeting a military base or supply depot if they’re after salvage worth selling on the open market.

“But they’re going for the city. They’ve already lost more than enough ‘Steeds to make something like this a wash. So why persist?”

“...I don’t know,” she admitted, “but there has to be a point where they’ll decide enough is enough and leave on their own. We don’t need to kill them to get them there.”

“Fine,” the earth pony shrugged, “then let’s withdraw and let the city burn. Let the raiders have their fun until they’re ready to go home. Anything to keep you hooves clean, right?”

“That’s not what this is about,” the mare insisted.

“Well it sure isn’t about protecting the citizens of this world,” Slipshod quipped. His eyes went to the map as he appraised their tactical situation, “withdraw to the next phase line,” he ordered, “we’re not taking this new lance head-on,” he turned his Cavalier around and spurred it into a run for the next pre-defined point on their map. Twilight fell in at his side. The third raider lance turned to pursue them.

They made their way up to the crest of the ridgeline running parallel to the advancing heavy lance. They were extremely exposed up there, but would be able to duck to the leeward side of the mountain range while their weapons charged. Strictly speaking, the raiders could likely simply go on ignoring both him and Twilight, and not have to worry about being seriously hurt any time soon. The range was pretty extreme, and the weapons that they had which could do any damage out that far were few.

But he certainly wasn’t about to take them into a melee, as damaged as they were. Twilight was free to use her missiles if she wanted. She had nearly the bombardment capability as the Ballista. Enough to take out maybe one or two of them if she actually wanted to.

Slipshod fired off a shot with his PPC, striking the bipedal Iron Will in the back of its right shoulder. The heavy ‘Steed paused, turned its torso, and responded with a shell from its autocannon. The earth pony had already veered to the side and dropped below the ridgeline however. He saw the spurt of dirt and rock as the shell detonated harmlessly on the face of the mountain. His eyes darted to his sensors, keeping note of the lighter lance which was circling wide to try and get an angle on them on this side of the ridge. The earth pony didn’t care for the idea of being pincered like that, but it would be difficult to avoid at the moment. Breaking to either side would mean getting into a close up fight with either lance, if only for a minute or two.

The lighter raider lance would be difficult to outrun even then. The heavier lance could be left behind easily enough, but they’d be able to inflict a lot of hurt on the pair of them for the minute or two that they were within range. Maybe even enough to cripple one or both of them. Honestly, the lighter lance would probably be capable of doing that at this point, the scallion thought, looking at the status of his ‘Steed.

Of course, for all his and Twilight’s harrying, the lance of heavier raiders was far from deterred. They were very nearly in range of the city’s outskirts too. Slipshod was sure that evacuations had been underway for a good while by now, and would certainly have to have started from the side of the city that would be struck first. That would hopefully mean that civilian casualties would be kept to a minimum. However, there was no way that the whole city had been cleared out by now. Not in only a few hours. Something like that would have taken a day or more at the least.

His screen was populated by a smattering of new sensor contacts. They weren’t pinged as hostile though. Slipshod soon discerned that these were additional planetary defense units. Their last line of defense, made up of everything that had either somehow survived previous skirmishes, or had been kept in reserve for one reason or another. Tabbing through the list of contacts, he saw that it wasn’t much of a last line honestly. Light recon units, and a few missile carriers. Nothing that would manage to stop the enemy.

Most of them wouldn’t even get a chance to fire if that Ballista got a lock on them.

“They might as well just slit their own damn throats,” the earth pony murmured to himself.

Perimeter turrets emerged from their sequestered mounts as the city’s automated defenses were activated. These turrets had been kept hidden in order to ensure that their targets would be within range of their lighter weapons when they finally deployed. Having them out sooner would have just let the raiders snipe them from beyond the turret’s own range.

As it was, revealing them at the last minute didn’t help much. Each turret got off maybe a single volley before being burned down by the raiders. It amounted to a few scattered hits being scored on the largely untouched ‘Steeds. None of which had been concentrated on a specific point on a single target. For all the effectiveness that they ended up having, Slipshod suspected that the city’s administrators would have been better off not deploying them at all. At least then they wouldn’t need to pay to replace them.

Assuming that there was even enough left of this place to bother rebuilding when the day was over with…

No, there was no stopping these raiders now.

...But Slipshod figured that there might be at least something that they could do to help out that might make a difference. Maybe.

He keyed up his mic, “we’re going to make a pass on the Ballista,” he announced, “and we’ll be targeting the right hind leg,” he added with a sardonic smile that he suspected the mare could hear in his voice, even if she couldn’t see him, “they’ll have to slow down to not leave it behind,” despite their penchant for senseless violence, these raiders had thus far proved that they were tactically minded and well coordinated. Which meant that they likely observed other basic tenets of BattleSteed combat as well. Such as: a lance is only as fast as its slowest ‘Steed.

“Stay on my flank,” Slipshod ordered just before taking hold of the controls and driving his Cavalier back over the ridge. The Iron Will had been waiting for him to make another appearance, but the pilot of the heavy ‘Steed had been a little off in their prediction of exactly where Slipshod would emerge from. A boulder a few meters to his left exploded in a shower of dust and pebbles. He depressed the throttle pedals with his hind hooves, coaxing every last ounce of speed he could out of his charge.

He held his fire even as the rangefinder informed him that his target was entering the extreme of his effective range. They’d only get one run like this. That other lance was doubtlessly on their way up the ridge at this very moment, and would be cresting it soon. Turning around for another pass would mean charging straight at two lances of ‘Steeds. So he wanted to be sure that he got the most out of every one of his limited shots, as each of his weapons would only have time to fire once. The closer he was, the more potent his weapons would be.

The Iron Will paused and turned its whole body to track his galloping ‘Steed. The bipedal bovine fired at him with viridian energy and streaking short range missiles. Some found their marks, eliciting alarms in the earth pony’s cockpit as the last vestiges of ablative plating were whisked away by the impacts. Another reason that only one pass would be possible.

The Shining Armor had taken notice too, pivoting and firing with its own heavy energy cannon. Indigo light burned across his Cavalier’s right shoulder. The pulse cannon mounted there flashed an alert. Slipshod’s eyes darted briefly to his HUD’s weapons status indicator. The weapon had been damaged, but was listed as still being operational. He might just have only the one shot with it anyway, as it turned out.

The range ticked down to three hundred meters. Slipshod’s hooves danced along his controls as he fired off every weapon that he possessed in rapid succession. A double-helix of chromatic energy carved away at the armored knee joint on the Ballista’s right leg. Successive pulses of blue light landed a half second later, clearing away the rest of the plating that had managed to survive the PPC strike. As expected, the damaged pulse cannon winked out of operation as something critically damaged by the Shining Armor gave way under the stresses of a discharge.

No matter, it had done its job.

By now, he was two hundred meters away from the Ballista, well within range of his medium energy cannons. These he quad-linked and fired at the naked joint. Emerald light drilled into the exposed steel skeleton and actuators. Unfortunately, it didn’t prove to be quite enough to do the job of crippling the limb entirely. Twilight’s PPC hit finished it off though. The rainbow projectile punched straight through the weakened joint, severing the leg entirely.

The assault-weight BattleSteed buckled and stumbled, collapsing to the knees of its forelimbs as the gyros fought for balance. It would inevitably be able to carry on with just three limbs, but at a greatly reduced pace. That should buy the city at least a few additional minutes.

A kaleidoscope of weaponized light, sprinkled with tracer fire and missiles, dazzled his cockpit viewport as Slipshod’s Crystal Cavalier sprinted away from the lance of raider ‘Steeds. He and Twilight drove hard for the distant ridgeline and the cover that it offered from the worst of the enemy’s fire. That other lance of lighter ‘Steeds would doubtlessly continue to pursue them even past the crest of the mountains, but there wasn’t anything that they could do about that.

Indicators on his HUD flashed warnings as the last vestiges of his rear ablative plating were chewed away by the barrage. There wasn’t much more that he could do about that other than slalom a little to and fro. Of course, the more drastic the serpentining, the lower the overall speed of his retreat, and thus the longer he spent under fire.

His alicorn comrade was at least able to help cover their withdrawal somewhat. She had turned her Rainbow Dash completely around and was using her jump jets to propel it in reverse in bursts. This allowed her to move much more quickly in reverse than she would have been able to using the normal drive train. The sudden thrusts of motion also helped her avoid being hit by too much of the enemy fire, while still allowing her to lay down covering volleys of her own every time her ‘Steed landed. Slipshod doubted that she was looking to target anything particularly critical on the enemy ‘Steeds―like their cockpits―but her partisan PPC shots should at least keep the raiders pursuing them from getting too complacent in their chase.

They wouldn’t be able to keep it up forever though. The purple alicorn’s lone ‘Steed wouldn’t be able to fend off all four members of the lance chasing them down, and their BattleSteeds were too battered to survive a prolonged conflict. They’d need a new plan, but the earth pony was fresh out of those. He idly considered calling in for another Condition Black. If the Disciples weren’t deployed by now, then they were going to be too late to do much good anyway.

The pair crested the ridge and started down the other side. Which was about the time that Slipshod’s sensors lit up with contacts. A dozen of them. He very nearly slammed the brakes and turned his happy flank back around to take his chances with the eight raider ‘Steeds to their rear. Then the IFF resolved and informed him that all twelve of these contacts were marked as ‘friendly’. Beyond them, the rotund spheroid silhouette of a Friendship-class DropShip was visible.

The Disciples of Discord had arrived.

At least, that’s whom Slipshod assumed they were. The emblem painted on the side of the DropShip wasn’t of a crossed horn and antler though. Instead, it was a six-pointed star. A nearly dead ringer for the bygone Celestia League. The color was a little off though, he thought.

Whoever they were, they were set up in what was quite clearly a firing line of heavy and assault BattleSteeds. Slipshod’s jaw went slack as he marveled at the chassis that he saw. More surprising than the distinctive profiles of the gargantuan Big Macs and fearsome Shadowbolts were probably the BattleSteeds that Slipshod didn’t recognize. Nor was his Chrystal Cavalier’s targeting computer able to make sense of what it was seeing. The Disciples had been designing new ‘Steeds of their own, the stallion realized.

Chrysalis definitely didn’t know anything about that!

The earth pony’s radio crackled to life with an unfamiliar mare’s voice, “y’all’re gonna wanna duck.”

Slipshod felt no compunction to ask for clarification as he wrenched his control yokes and veritably threw his ‘Steed into the dirt. Twilight was a tad more graceful in her efforts, thrusting her Rainbow Dash far to the side, well beyond the limit of the line of Disciple ‘Steeds that had taken up position at the base of the ridge.

A few seconds later, the lance of raiders crested the rise.

Just as his screen had, Slipshod knew that those pilots were seeing a slew of new contacts populate on their sensors. There was no way for them to stop and turn around in time of course. In fact, more than that, in the few seconds it would have taken them to realize that they’d wandered into the wrong valley, their momentum had taken them below the peak of the ridge, and out of direct radio contact with the other lance. They couldn’t warn the raiders marching on the city that trouble was on its way and they needed to leave now.

They couldn’t do that. They weren’t even able to turn their ‘Steeds around and retreat in time to avoid the onslaught of missiles, high-explosive shells, and searing energy which leapt up the mountainside and reduced their doomed ‘Steeds to so much wreckage. There probably wasn’t even anything salvageable left. The stallion had only caught sight of a single ejection too.

“Shit...shootin’ range at the fair was more challengin’ than that!” the same mare barked a laugh, “mighty oblidgin’ o’you to lead’m to us like that,” a brief pause, followed by an appreciative whistle, “y’alls ‘Steeds look rougher’n porcupine’s hind end. Take a load off. I figure we got it from ‘ere.

“Up an’ o’er fellers! We got us more barrels o’ fish to shoot up!”

Apparently, that was command enough for the assembled Disciple ‘Steeds to begin their ascent up the mountainside towards the valley containing the last remaining lance of raiders. Who, Slipshod surmised, still had no clue that their companions had just been wiped out, and that a company of fresh BattleSteeds was on its way to hit them hard from behind.

It was going to be a slaughter.

One which Slipshod was perfectly fine to sit out, honestly. Whoever that mare was, she hadn’t been wrong about the state of his Cavalier: it was rather battered and beaten. Tig was going to have some words for him when they got back to the ship, that was for sure. Especially if they weren’t able to rebuild the pulse cannon. Though, the stallion was willing to wager that the Disciples had, and would be willing to provide, replacement parts for his damaged ‘Steed. He’d spied a Crystal Cavalier or two among their own ranks. Probably even 6b variants like his own.

Though he was definitely far more curious about those designs which he hadn’t recognized. He supposed that he shouldn’t be all that surprised. Any organization that had the resources to maintain a WarShip like the Rockhoof for five centuries surely was in a position to design and build new ‘Steeds. The changelings had certainly been doing it, after all.

Maybe he’d have the chance to get a better look at them once they got to wherever the Disciples were taking them.

In the meantime, he was grateful enough to get a break and be done with the fighting for the day. He keyed in the frequency for the Galloway and commed up to the DropShip, “Gallop One to Galloway, mission complete. The Disciples are landed and mopping up the last of the raiders. Ready for pickup whenever you are.”

“Roger that, Gallop One,” High Gain’s voice responded, “plotting descent course for rendezvous and pickup―wait one…”

The earth pony straightened up in his seat, now more intent on the conversation. He couldn’t conceive of an interruption that would be to their benefit, after all. By the time the earth pony mare resumed speaking to him, he’d already gone through a half dozen scenarios which spelled their utter doom.

“Gallop Lance,” the stallion couldn’t help but smirk slightly at the thought of designating the pair of them a ‘lance’, “we’re picking up a distress signal five clicks from your position. Civilian convoy under attack from two ‘Steeds. Their escort is heavily damaged.”

Slipshod frowned. He could empathize with civilians in distress, but he and Twilight were hardly in any kind of shape to help those zebras, as battered as they were, “send it to the Disciples,” he sighed, “they’ve got fresh ‘Steeds”

“Their company’s moving in the opposite direction,” High Gain noted, “you’re closer, and it doesn’t sound like they’ll last much longer. Obviously nopony up here can force you to go, and Squelch isn’t ordering you to. Technically we’ve fulfilled the contract we had with the Disciples…” the mare’s voice hung for a moment, “I’m just...letting you know.”

The stallion sighed. Squelch wouldn’t order him to help, though she would certainly want him to. The Disciples might call up and request an addendum to their contract; that might change things. Though it sounded like there wouldn’t be time for that, if things were really as dire as High Gain was making them sound.

The bottom line was: there was nothing to gain that was worth the risk. What was the gratitude of a convoy of fleeing civilians when compared to the thanks they would be receiving for saving a whole city?

Then a thought occurred to the stallion. High Gain had mentioned that two ‘Steeds were responsible for the attack? There were only supposed to have been a company of raiders on this planet. Twelve BattleSteeds. Four had just been killed here, four more were being destroyed on the other side of the mountains at this very moment, and he’d slagged a pair during their tussle with that first lance.

The only two raiders that could be attacking the civilians then were...

“Send us the coordinates,” he said to the DropShip’s comm operator, “we’re on our way,” a nav point appeared on his map. He swapped over to the internal lance frequency, “Twilight, we’ve got a distress signal. We’re heading there to help,” sometimes knowledge was even more valuable than C-bits.

And he was going to see to it that Twilight got an education today.

The distance between them and the source of the signal was just under five kilometers. Honestly, Slipshod wasn’t convinced that they’d make it there on time to do any good anyway. Which, frankly, was just fine by him. In a way, that might even make for a more pointed lesson if they did arrive too late. He had to make it at least look like he’d had them make every effort to get there in time to help if he wanted that to stick though, otherwise the alicorn could deflect blame onto him for the massacre.

Sure enough, when they came into visual range of the fight, he found exactly what he’d expected: two Gildas attacking a column of fleeing trucks. What was surprising was the convoy’s escort: a Philomena. The earth pony had thought that the planetary defense forces were devoid of BattleSteeds. Otherwise, they’d surely have been deployed to fend off the raiders, right? What made this convoy so important that it warranted the protection of what had to be the only friendly ‘Steed on the planet?

He supposed they’d have to save them to find out.

The stallion targeted the Gilda which Twilight had already damaged significantly during their first encounter and snapped off a PPC shot. Unfortunately, it went wide, but it certainly seemed to get the other pilot’s attention. The raider diverted from its attack on the badly damaged Philomena and turned instead to face the new arrivals. Or, perhaps, ‘old arrivals’ was more apt?

If Slipshod thought that the raiders would be more skittish about tangling with the same pair of ‘Steeds that had sent them packing earlier, he’d have been wrong. Since that last encounter, he and Twilight had taken quite a bit more damage, while neither of the Gildas seemed to have suffered too greatly in their encounter with the convoy’s escort. The stallion couldn’t disagree that their chances were not quite as lopsided as the fielded tonnages would suggest.

A missile lock warning blared, and a plume of smoke rose from the back of the Gilda facing him. He cringed in anticipation of the hit, idly wondering what systems he’d lose when those warheads landed, because there certainly wasn’t much armor left to absorb the damage.

His cockpit darkened briefly as a massive shadow passed overhead. The cerulean Rainbow Dash arced above him, just in time to catch the missiles meant for him on its backside before it landed in front of him. The alicorn’s ‘Steed retaliated with a missile barrage of her own―finally. Forty LRMs spewed forth from the launchers sequestered behind her ‘Steed’s shoulders and streaked for their target. They drilled home, one after another, in quick succession, obliterating plating and internals alike until one―or more likely several―found the reactor and detonated it.

There wasn’t an ejection.

Twilight wasn’t done either. Her BattleSteed raced on ahead, riding upon pillars of violet fire as its jump jets propelled it forwards towards the remaining medium raider ‘Steed. Her prismatic projection cannons fired a pair of shots that smashed into the Gilda’s barrel, staggering the winged ‘Steed. A puff of smoke and an explosion signaled the impact of an autocannon shell. Finally, the Rainbow Dash itself connected with the smaller BattleSteed.

It split neatly in two as seventy tons of flying metal pegasus met with fifty-five tons of half-eviscerated griffon. The Rainbow Dash emerged from the other side of the crackling ball of electric fire that was all that remained of the Gilda. It was going to need a new paint job, but otherwise looked intact.

Slipshod could only sit and sigh, propping his head up on a hoof as he regarded the sight, “now was that so damn hard?” he muttered to himself. He then reached over to the radio and sought out the frequency for the convoy’s escort. He made sure to include Twilight in on the conversation so that she’d be able to hear what was said, but not transmit, “Somepony call for the cavalry?”

The response was heavily distorted, likely as a result of damage sustained to the other ‘Steed, but it was comprehensible, “Whoever you ar―ou made it just in time. Another ten sec―ds and I’d have been a gone―!”

“No problem,” Slipshod said, doing his best to sound pleasantly amicable, like the true gallant hero he was pretending to be, “glad to help. Did the convoy make it okay?” he intended for the question to sound innocent enough, but this was the part that he wanted Twilight to hear most of all. Hopefully, it was all that he hoped it would be.

A defeated sigh was audible through the crackling. A good sign, “we started wit―twenty-three trucks. There’s...seven now,” the resignation was palpable, but the other pilot was doing his best to stoke even the barest mote of optimism, “but, that’s seven more th―there would have been without you. So than―you! Truly!”

Sixteen trucks loaded with fleeing civilians destroyed by the same pair of raiders that Twilight had let go earlier―against his explicitly stated advice, “damn,” he said, feigning his own resignation, “wish we could have gotten here earlier. We might have been able to save more lives,” he was going to drive this lesson home for the alicorn, and he wasn’t going to be subtle about it.

If she wanted to keep applying her ‘mercy’ to these fights, he was going to ensure that she understood the full ramifications of it.

“Not your fault,” oh, to have been near the mare to feel her emotional reaction to that line, “didn’t think they’d go for u―they were heading for the city last I kne―. Not sure why they turned around.”

“Who knows why raiders do any of the things they do?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, good news at least: the rest of them have been dealt with,” he informed the escort pilot, “I can put in a call to my DropShip and our allies to get some medical personnel and supplies out here. Sound good?”

“I’ll have to check with...well, whoever’s in ch―rge now; but I think that’d be fine.”

“Understood,” Slipshod said before keying over to the channel for the Galloway, “Gallop One to Galloway; convoy is secure. Requesting medical for the survivors.”

“Understood, Gallop One. We’ll coordinate with the Disciples. Hold fast at your current position.”

“No problem, Galloway,” the stallion said, smirking, “we’ve got to debrief anyway…”

Planetary resources were stretched pretty thin at the moment―for obvious reasons. As a result, there wasn’t much that the local government could do to help the survivors of the convoy. Fortunately, between the Disciples and the Steel Coursers, enough supplies and medical personnel were found to provide aid and treatment. The ‘Steed Bay of the Galloway was turned into a makeshift infirmary for the wounded until more permanent arrangements could be made in the city. By their best estimates, it would likely be another couple of days before something was found.

Which meant that ‘Steed maintenance would be getting performed outside―much to the annoyance of the twin kirin mechanics. In fairness, they were far more put out by the quantity of damage that Slipshod and Twilight had “let happen” to their ‘Steeds than the fact that their Bay had been co-opted by Doc Dee and his recently deputized ‘nurses’―which consisted of pretty much any member of the crew who’d taken so much as a CPR course in their youth.

There wasn’t all that much for the two ‘Steed pilots to do though. After the briefest post-mission medical evaluation that Slipshod could remember receiving since signing on with the Steel Coursers, Doc Dee had pronounced both of them “not dying” and immediately moved on to tend to the dozens of zebras who very much were. As the earth pony hadn’t received medical training of any sort before, and Twilight admitted that she’d never bothered to learn healing magic as she had found other schools of arcana more captivating, the pair relegated themselves to just trying to stay out of the way as much as possible. To that end, they hadn’t even gone inside the DropShip yet. Even the parts of it that weren’t serving as triage, treatment, or recovery wards, were clogged with ponies carrying both patients and medical supplies between them.

The Galloway was a full on hospital ship, and neither ‘Steed pilot had any place in it.

They were watching the activity though. Especially Twilight. Her expression was haunted. The guilt radiating off of her was acrid and bitter.

Yet Slipshod found that he was absolutely reveling in every moment of it. It was the best tasting foulness that he’d ever experienced. Sanctimonious vindication turned out to be one tartarus of a spice!

“You could have stopped this, you know,” damn it was hard to not sound smug, the stallion thought to himself as he spoke, “I even told you to finish them off.”

He had the satisfaction of seeing the alicorn wince, her shoulders slumping. She didn’t meet his gaze. She just kept staring off in the direction of the DropShip, “...they said they were leaving the planet,” was her hollow-sounding excuse.

Slipshod couldn’t suppress his derisive snort, “and I’m sure they were going to...eventually. After butchering a few hundred more civilians,” he waved his hoof in the direction of the ‘morgue’, which was little more than some tentage erected over a swath of bagged bodies awaiting pickup by the city’s doubtlessly already overworked mortuary services. Only Celestia knew when those bodies would actually get collected.

Or as much of any given body that was recoverable from the wreckage. Energy cannons were terrifyingly adept at vaporizing anything organic that they struck. Slipshod idly wondered how robust the DNA records were on this planet; because that was the only way that far too many of the dead were going to be able to be identified. When all that was left was the odd hoof or hip, there really weren’t many other viable options.

“It…” the words caught in the purple mare’s throat. She swallowed, “...I never imagined it could be like this,” she admitted, “there’s no reason for it,” she said, as though that statement would somehow undo the past and bring all of the dead back to life.

“Since when does shit like this need a reason to happen?”

Twilight was shaking her head, “you don’t understand: stuff like this didn’t used to happen! Creatures didn’t do this to each other!”

“No, you don’t understand,” Slipshod countered coldly, glaring at the alicorn, “however things used to be? Doesn’t matter. They aren’t that way anymore. The galaxy you knew? It doesn’t exist. That reality? It. Doesn’t. Exist,” he jabbed a hoof once more at the rows of dead bodies, “that is reality now.”

“But it doesn’t have to be that way!” she protested.

“Of course it doesn’t!” It honestly looked like his candid admission shocked the alicorn, “in a galaxy where everycreature ascribes to the Magic of Friendship, something like this would never have happened,” the stallion acknowledged, “but that vanished a long time ago. This isn’t the galaxy you knew anymore. It follows a different set of rules.

“One of those rules is that there are creatures who will kill, if you give them a chance.”

“I can make things better,” the alicorn insisted.

Slipshod shrugged, “and I believe that,” again, another look of shock, “what? You’re an immortal demi-goddess,” the stallion favored the princess with a sardonic smirk, “once Chrysalis is gone, you will literally have all of eternity to work on restoring everlasting peace to the galaxy. I assume that, eventually, you’ll even succeed. Even if it takes a thousand years. Or more.

“However,” he stressed, his expression growing cold once again, “you’re going to need to decide how many innocents you’re willing to sacrifice to build your utopia.

“One way or the other, that ‘better galaxy’ of yours is going to be built on a foundation of blood and bones,” Twilight cringed at the thought, and looked like she was about to protest, but the earth pony didn’t give her an opening, “Chrysalis isn’t going to just roll over for you,” he pointed out, “taking her down will mean a fight. A long one. A bloody one. And not just fighting changelings either. She’ll throw ponies, kirin, hippogriffs, thestrals―whoever she needs to―at you.

“If you don’t fight them, somepony else is going to have to,” he nodded his head towards the DropShip packed with the wounded, “and that somepony else might not be as skilled as you are. And they’ll get hurt or killed. Because you flinched.

“And you want to know what the worst part is?” Slipshod curled his lip at the princess in a contemptuous sneer, “it’s that you’re such a hypocrite about it,” he snorted, “about a lot of things, turns out.

“You’re willing to kill,” the stallion noted, “and I’m not even talking about today, either. You killed during that ComSpark ambush,” Slipshod let out a dry, cackling laugh, “I even gave you the perfect way to disable those ‘Steeds without harming the pilots; and you murdered them anyway!

“So it’s not that you ‘won’t kill’, or that you think it’s ‘objectively wrong’; you just want to be the one to have the final say in who does and doesn’t die,” he deduced, “you really missed having control over everything that much, didn’t you?”

“It’s not like that!”

“Then what is it like? Why did those changelings deserve to die―executed while trapped in disabled BattleSteeds―but those fucking raiders got a second chance to go on slaughtering civilians?”

“I…” the alicorn faltered, her eyes downcast, “...because Chrysalis destroyed everything,” she murmured, “she took my throne and used my image to undo all the good in the galaxy. Everything that’s wrong is her fault!”

“And so every changeling in the galaxy deserves to pay for her crimes? Got it,” he scoffed.

“No, that’s not―”

“Fuck you,” the stallion snarled, cutting the alicorn’s protests short, “and you know what? Here’s the thing: you don’t need to justify yourself to me. I honestly don’t care who you kill, or why,” he said with a shrug, “but what I do care about is you using sanctimonious bullshit to try and validate your pathetic excuses as to why you refuse to give it your all out there in the field!

“I need you if I want Chrysalis gone,” the earth pony growled, “and I need you to take this shit fucking seriously. I need you to understand that half-assing it out there; it leads to this,” another wave at the morgue, “and if it goes on for too long, you’ll create so many of those that there’ll be nocreature left to help you bring Chrysalis down once and for all.

“Or, worse, I might end up in one of those fucking bags,” he added with a sneer.

“So you better get your priorities straight, or the last time you see a field filled with bodies, it’ll be the entirety of whatever army was stupid enough to trust you to lead them to victory on Equus…right before Chrysalis cuts your fucking head off and removes the last remaining threat to her control over the galaxy.”

Slipshod held the alicorn’s gaze...and had the satisfaction of seeing her look away.

The two pilots sat without uttering another word to each other for several long minutes after that. Then the silence was broken by a zebra stallion who was walking in their direction. At first, Slipshod took him for one of the civilians that they’d rescued. It wouldn’t be the first time that evening that one of them had come by and expressed their gratitude to their ‘saviors’. The striped equine had a bandage taped over the side of his jaw, and his shoulder was covered by an elastic wrapping, and his stride showed him clearly favoring the joint. He certainly looked like one of the injured civilians.

However, this soon proved itself to be an erroneous assumption, “hey!” he greeted, “Name’s Xanadu. I know I said ‘thank you’ over the radio, but I figured I’d come and express my gratitude again in person,” the stallion grinned broadly at the pair of ponies, “you two really pulled my flank out of the fire back there.

“Never expected that a pair of ‘Steeds would come to my rescue,” he offered an anemic chuckle, then added, “didn’t really expect any rescue, to be honest…”

Slipshod took the initiative in responding to the zebra, as he could feel from Twilight that she was likely not quite in the right mind to be cordial yet. He was a lot better at feigning the proper emotional state for most interactions, whether he was actually up to it or not, “well, we didn’t expect to be rescuing another ‘Steed! What, are you the only pilot on the planet or something?” he asked, half joking.

“Pretty much, yeah,” the striped stallion said, shrugging with his good shoulder, “I’m a private security contractor. My current―or former, rather―employer was the owner of AgriCorp. They essentially own every farm on the planet. If you buy food on Capensis, you’re buying it from AgriCorp. Everyzebra’s gotta eat, so he could pretty much print money,” the stallion thought for a moment, then added with a chuckle, “come to think of it, AgriCorp uses ‘company script’, so he actually does print money, heh!

“Er, did. Damn,” he frowned.

“Private security contractor?” Slipshod raised a curious brow, “that’s a pretty fancy way to say ‘mercenary’.”

The zebra grinned, “that’s what the title for the position was when I took it. Pretty good gig. Just had to park my ‘Steed at the front gate of the corporate headquarters and then fuck off all day doing whatever. Never knew sitting on my flank would pay so well!

“Don’t get the wrong idea,” he hastily amended when he caught the disapproving expression on Twilight’s face upon hearing about what could easily be taken for his lack of work ethic, “it’s not that I’m lazy or anything; it’s just that there wasn’t anything to do. AgriCorp is literally the only source of food on the planet. Nocreature’s stupid enough to fuck with it. A BattleSteed for ‘security’ was way overkill. I was just a ‘status symbol’ more than anything.

“The CEO really did just want my Philomena parked in front of his office,” he snorted, “he even had it waxed to make it look shinier! Who does that to a ‘Steed?

“After three years of that, I almost thought I’d never have to do an ‘honest day’s work’ for the guy,” a heavy sigh, “I’m gonna miss the old bastard.”

“I assume he died in the attack?” Slipshod ventured.

The zebra nodded, “yeah. He was in the rear vehicle. Insisted on being the last one out of the building. He was absolutely vicious at the negotiating table―AgriCorp didn’t always have a monopoly on food on Capensis―but the guy did genuinely care about his employees. He understood that, without them, there was no AgriCorp. So he took care of them real good.

“There’s a shelter he had built for them and their families in the mountains over there,” he nodded to the northeast, “a place to hold out in the event of a raid or an attack or whatever,” the stallion shrugged, “a lot a zebras felt he was being a little paranoid about it. But I guess when you’ve got the kind of ‘do whatever I want’ money like he did, you just...do whatever you want. And he wanted to build a shelter in the mountains big enough to house a thousand zebras for something like six months or whatever.”

The striped pilot smirked, “guess he had the last laugh though. Turns out the shelter was a good idea after all! Probably should have built it a little closer, in hindsight,” he frowned, rubbing the back of his head, “I really thought we were in the clear too...then bam! Two Gildas pop up on our six. Missiles were flying before I could even get turned around.

“CEO and his family died in the first volley,” he offered a wry smile, “probably not gonna mention that on my resume…”

“What’ll happen to his company now?” Twilight inquired.

“D’unno,” the zebra admitted, “a lot of the execs died in the attack. Chances are the ‘next in line’ is some admin assistant who doesn’t know a damn thing about managing a farming conglomerate. It’ll probably go under in a matter of weeks.

“Something’ll obviously pop up in its place eventually,” he went on, still sounding indifferent to the situation, “but I would not want to be around for the inevitable food riots until that happens,” the striped stallion shared a knowing look with the other two pilots.

It was all that Slipshod could do to maintain an appropriately sympathetic expression as he feigned concern for the surviving civilian population, all the while reveling in Twilight’s despondency as she realized that more innocent bodies would soon be tied to her earlier inaction, “yeah, I can imagine those’ll get pretty awful. It’ll probably be months before a relief convoy can be sent, huh?”

“At a minimum,” the zebra nodded in agreement. Then he bit his lip and looked between the pair with a sheepish expression, “so, on that note, not to sound too desperate or anything, but: are you guys hiring?”

Slipshod cocked his head to the side, considering the zebra for a few seconds. He didn’t know nearly enough about this pilot to be able to fairly judge their skills. The catastrophic losses that the civilian convoy had suffered were hardly a fair metric, as it was the next best thing to impossible to stop two ‘Steeds from doing whatever they wanted to in that sort of situation. The fact that he’d lived long enough to be rescued suggested that he had some talent though.

“I’ll talk with our boss about it,” the earth pony offered, “see if she feels like taking interviews. Fair warning though: we’re probably not going to be hanging out in the Periphery long.”

A look of relief washed over the zebra’s face, “no worries there. I don’t have a lot of ties to the Empire these days. Lost any family I cared about in a Reiver raid nearly a decade back. I’m willing to go wherever.”

“‘Reiver’?” the purple alicorn inquired.

“That’s the group that attacked us here,” he explained, “The Red Reivers. Pirate band operating out of a couple nearby systems. They extort a lot of the Periphery this side of the Sphere.”

Slipshod had to admit that even he was a little surprised by the level of candor in the zebra’s tone. He might as well have been talking about this region’s weather. As though such raids were little different from the occasionally destructive storm.

“And they make attacks like this often?” Twilight asked, sounding aghast.

The zebra shook his head, “nah. This kind of thing’s pretty rare, actually. As long as a system is paid up on their dues, they leave you alone,” he looked around him for a moment and then returned his gaze to the pair of pilots with a shrug, “guess the governor fell behind.”

“Why doesn’t anypony do anything about them?”

He frowned at the alicorn, “uh, because we can’t? What you saw here was one of their smaller raiding parties. Their strongholds are just that: strongholds. The Empire doesn’t have the resources to dig them out. It’s cheaper and easier to just pay them off.”

“This doesn’t look very ‘easy’ to me...” Twilight muttered acidly.

“Like I said: attacks like this are rare. Maybe every few years, and only to serve as a reminder of why missing a payment is a ‘bad idea’. Don’t get me wrong: everyzebra would love it if the Reivers were dealt with once and for all―probably a few other local governments as well. But...there’s nothing we can do about that.”

Twilight scowled, clearly not at all happy with what she was hearing. Her amethyst eyes darted in the direction of the distant Disciple DropShip that was visible on the horizon, “oh, I think we can,” she stated resolutely before looking back at the zebra, “tell me everything you know about these ‘Reivers’...”

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